


Clipped Wings

by LilacPessimism



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Blood and Injury, Child Abuse, Eye Trauma, Gen, Hurt Keith (Voltron), Hurt Lance (Voltron), Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Major Character Injury, Medical Trauma, Minor Character Death, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, set while Keith is with the Blade
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-03-01 20:16:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 33,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13302396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilacPessimism/pseuds/LilacPessimism
Summary: The supply run for the Blade was never supposed to be anything more than a quick in-and-out mission. However, Keith quickly finds himself with more than he bargained for as an alien species known as the "Collectors" take an interest in his half-Galran, half-human heritage.Lance never expected for anything to happen on his first solo diplomatic mission for the team. Instead, he finds himself facing an impossible choice and the truth of how unfair the universe can truly be.





	1. Towards the Sun

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, everyone! This is my first Voltron fanfic (and my first fanfic in general) so I hope that you will enjoy it!
> 
> Clipped will be told in alternating P.O.Vs between Keith and Lance (and possibly the other paladins but idk yet). As of right now, I don't plan on there being any pairings, but I will let you know if that changes in the future! This first chapter is little short because I'm testing things out, but they will likely get longer in the future!

Working for the Blade was different than working with Voltron. The atmosphere with the Marmorans was heavier, tenser. They trained into the deep hours of the night, retiring only when their arms could no longer hold up their swords. Missions came at every time of day, often requiring a level of stealth and expertise that Keith had never required with his former team. Every moment risked discovery, risked death.

It was exhilarating.

He could train until his muscles burned, fight in ways that would have scared his old team with the _risks_ and the _danger_. Here, no one cared how late he stayed up, if he slept at all, as long as he was ready to go whenever he was called. There was an order that he had come to appreciate. The Blade was a well-oiled machine. No shake-ups, or arguments, or petty fighting. Here, everyone had a place.

It was lonely.

Though he would never admit it, the Blade’s base was far colder than he was comfortable with. As the former Red Paladin, Keith was accustomed to warmth, to heat. He didn’t like the chilling shadows that lurked around every corner. He longed for the blankets Coran used to drape over his shoulders when he couldn’t sleep and sat by the windows to watch the stars. He missed the glow of Pidge’s computer, the way it reflected off of her glasses when she tilted her head. He missed Hunk’s cookies, Shiro’s hand on his shoulder, Allura’s reassurance. He missed the spark in Lance’s voice as he laughed and challenged Keith again, and again, and again—

“Keith!” Kolivan’s harsh voice drew him back to the present, “Are you listening?”

“Supply run,” Keith bit out, because, even though the Blade and Voltron had differences, they still had one thing in common, “And you’re forcing me to go because…”

“Because the planet Yartripz is not friendly with the Galran people. Though it is not under Zarkon’s control, many of the inhabitants are hostile with our species. However, it houses some of the largest markets in the local planetary systems, and we believe it will be the best place to find the materials we need, as well as possible information about Lotor, Zarkon, or other rebellions we could ally with,” he frowned, “We are sending you because you do not look outwardly Galran. We cannot risk causing hostility or alerting others to our cause before we are ready. Is that understood?”

Keith scowled, no matter how it was worded, he knew that this mission was just a way for Kolivan to get him off base for a little while. He had been growing more restless recently, more prone to angry outbursts, more impulsive on missions. He had almost jeopardized the last two missions he went on because of his recklessness (though, he noted, no one had been killed, and a Blade stuck in the infirmary for a broken leg wasn’t _that_ bad.) 

“Fine,” he said finally, and Kolivan nodded: it hadn’t been a choice.

“Remember,” his leader reminded, “No trouble. Get the supplies we need. Information too, if possible. But no trouble.”

“In and out,” Keith agreed.

_In and out._

***

Yartripz was _hot_. Keith could feel the sweat beading on his neck the moment he stepped from his ship, and he tugged on his jacket sleeve in discomfort. Though he had tied his hair back to help escape the relentless heat of the planet's double suns, there was little he could do aside from resigning to the inevitable sunburn and trudging forward. And, as much as it stifled him, his jacket was a necessarily evil, as it protected his arms, at least, from the relentless suns.

He scolded himself for scorning the cold of the Marmoran base. Right now, he would give anything for its drafts and chilling shadows.

_In and out._

The walk from his ship to the central marketplace wasn’t long, and Keith reached it in a matter of minutes. Though he had been given directions, he could have found it by sound alone, as the shouting of merchants was almost overwhelming. The streets were crowded close to bursting with tents and aliens of all different shapes and colors. Some stands were not unlike those found on Earth: with simple spreads that offered the equivalents (he assumed) to fruits and vegetables. Other notable stands boasted shiny piles of twisted metal parts, strange concoctions that promised concerning side effects, and a roasted something that was undeniable pink and furry. 

If he had been with Lance, or any of the other Paladins for that matter, Keith knew that he would have had a hard time moving past the first few stalls. Hunk and Pidge would have wanted to investigate the metal pieces and Lance would have tried to get Keith to eat the pink thing. Coran might have stopped to tell a story about space pirates, and the group would have been thoroughly distracted before they even began. 

However, because he was alone, Keith brushed through the crowd without a second thought, head ducked as he sifted through the haggling and arguing around him, searching for any information that might be useful. A few interesting snippets about Prince Lotor drifted through the air, but they faded as soon as he tried to find the source. Likewise, he quickly lost a few soft murmurs about Voltron and the mention of Zarkon’s name.

The heat and his frustration were quickly turning this mission miserable.

_In and out._

“Hey!”

Keith glanced up, eyes scanning the crowd for whoever shouted.

“Hey! Yeah! You! With the red coat!” The speaker was a small alien at a nearby stand. One with four lilac eyes and seven alarmingly slimy looking tentacles.

“Come here!”

 _In and out_.

Keith bit his lip, weighing the possibility that this alien recognized him as a Blade or a Paladin and that this was some sort of trap.

 _Or it could have information_ , he argued with himself, _It might know something about Lotor. About Zarkon._

He stepped towards it, and the alien’s eyes widened in delight, “Yes! Hello!”

“What do you want?” he asked it as he reached the booth.

The alien laughed, a disturbing action that shook all seven of its tentacles, “I don’t want anything. I have what you need.”

Keith frowned, “Information?”

“Mmm. On Lotor! Yes!”

He leaned forward, heart pounding. This could be what the Blade needed! Their chance to finally move forward and stop with their useless stealth missions. Faintly, he remembered that he was here for other, more important items. But, he told himself firmly, they could wait.

“What do you know?”

“He’s like you!”

“Like me?” _Like him?_ He knew Lotor could pilot, could fight, but they weren’t really all that similar. Not really.

“Yes! Like you!” the tentacles waved through the air, wiggling in sync, “He smells like you!”

Keith dropped his hand to rest on his knife, “What do you mean?”

“Like you! Yes!” the lilac eyes narrowed, “But harder to catch!”

_To catch—_

Alarm bells rang in Keith’s mind and he tightened his grasp on his knife, but it was already too late. Something pricked at the sunburnt skin on the back of his neck, and the world began to blur.

“Who are you?” he asked, but his voice sounded slurred as it reached his ears.

He took a step backwards but there was nothing to catch him. The world tipped, and then everything went black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's the end of the first chapter! Next up: Lance!


	2. Burning Up

“Look, Allura, I know that I’m the most charming and charismatic paladin on the team—sorry, Hunk—but I don’t think it’s fair that everyone else has a partner on their mission except me!”

“Lance,” Allura sighed, “We’ve been over this. The Verrion people are harmless. You’ll be fine.”

“Harmless!” Lance raised his eyebrows in indignation, “You saw the information Pidge found. They collect other aliens for sport!”

“That’s just a rumor, I’m sure—”

“What if they try to kidnap me!” he wrenched his gaze away from Allura and towards Shiro, searching desperately for reason, “I mean, I know I’m good looking, but I don’t want to be put on display in an alien zoo for the rest of my life—”

“Lance!” it was Shiro who broke him off, and his stern gaze froze Lance’s words in his mouth, “Enough. No one is going to kidnap you.”

From across the room, Pidge snorted, “We’ve been to a space mall, flown around in giant sentient lions, and rescued a crazy, multi-reality viewing alien, but _kidnapping_ is where you draw the line?”

“Yes! Thank you, Pidge!” There were much stranger things than kidnapping that had happened out here. In fact, compared to what they _had_ experienced, Lance was pretty sure that something like kidnapping would be as ordinary as the shoes he wore on his feet. In fact, come to think of it, he technically _had_ been kidnapped already. Albeit, it happened while an evil monster was trying to eat a bunch of mermaids and the group who kidnapped him were actually the good guys, but it was still a _kidnapping_.

Pidge snickered, and Shiro cast a biting glare in her direction. Though he said nothing, his gaze was enough for her to duck her head with a small squeak, and she quickly shifted her laptop to block her face.

“No one is going to kidnap you,” he repeated as he looked back to Lance, “You’re a Paladin of Voltron. They’ll know that capturing you will make the rest of us their enemies.”

“Well if you’re so sure, why don’t you go!”

“Uh, Lance?” This was Hunk speaking for the first time, and Lance gasped in mock betrayal as his friend sided with their leader, “Then you would be with me, and you would have to go to the spider aliens—”

“Berzylfyiands!” Allura interjected helpfully.

Hunk nodded, “The Bearzil-friends. And, while I would be happy to have you along, I know how much you don’t like spiders, and I wouldn’t want—”

“No, no, no, you’re right,” Lance agreed, trying his best to ignore the shivers creeping down his spine from the mere mention of spiders and failing terribly, “That would be awful. But what about Allura? She’s far more diplomatically adept than I am. Far better equipped for a solo mission.”

The princess offered him a small smile but shook her head curtly, “Unfortunately, Queen Arnia of the Crythorpian people has requested that her presence be greeted with only an audience of females. Pidge and I are the only ones who can go.”

“Coran?” Lance sprinkled a little bit of sugar into his whining plead. Back on Earth, sometimes that was enough to earn a lick of the batter spoon when his mom was baking.

The Altean twined his moustache around his finger, “Sorry, my boy, but I need to stay here on the castle. If anything _does_ happen, we need to be prepared to make a quick and hasty exit!”

Lance groaned, “As much as I hate to say it, I wish Keith were here. His stupid mullet would try to take all of the glory, but at least _he_ wouldn’t let me get kidnapped!” _And even if I did get kidnapped then at least I wouldn’t be alone_.

“Lance,” Shiro repeated, “You’ll be _fineI_. If anything happens, we’ll know as soon as you fail to return to the castle after a couple of varga. You also have a helmet with working comms. You’re working yourself up over nothing. We don’t even know if those rumors are true.”

“But if they are—”

“Then you’ll be fine,” Shiro frowned, pausing for a moment as he glanced at the Blue Paladin, “Actually, why are you so worried about this? You’ve never been so agitated about a mission before. Are you okay?”

Lance nodded, “I’m fine,” something curdled in his gut, a rumbling darkness, “I just...I have a bad feeling about this.”

“You’ll be fine,” Shiro said again, but his voice wasn’t as sure as it was before, “It’s just a quick meeting. In and out.”

“Okay,” Lance sighed, plastering a reluctant smile to his face, “In and out.”

_In and out_.  


***

  
Lance wasn’t one for pep talks, but, as he sat in Red outside of the Verrion castle (if you could call the strange conglomeration of gleaming domed structures a castle) he decided that some sort of conversation, even if it was more of a backup plan than anything else, was necessary.

_Alright, Red, I know I’m not Keith, but if something happens to me in there, I need you to alert the team and then bust through the walls and rescue me._

His lion rumbled, but the laugh seemed forced compared to what Lance had experienced when talking to her before. Instead of the low magnitude earthquake that had (more than once) almost thrown him from his pilot’s seat, it was more of a gentle shaking—a heavy wind or a pounding drum.

_Oh man, are my worries getting to you? Sorry about that, girl. Shiro’s right, I’m probably just overreacting._

Red rumbled again, but it wasn’t a laugh this time. Laughs weren’t this urgent.

Lance frowned, _I’ll be careful! I promise. Like I said, It’s probably all in my head. Allura and Coran know more than I do. If they say it’s a rumor, then they’re probably right._

She rumbled again, but Lance was already squaring his shoulders and rising from his seat. 

“I’ll be fine,” he promised, the words lingering in the air: a vow for both of them.

Red stayed quiet as he emerged from her mouth, but he felt her relentless unease at the back of his mind—a gentle pacing reminding him to keep his guard up. He smiled as he stepped onto the planet and away from his lion, but his hand patted his side, ensuring that his bayard was within easy reach.

“Paladin!” a voice rang out, and Lance glanced up, wincing as the planet’s light reflected into his eyes. He glanced down, searching for some relief, but his eyes widened in surprise. Was the ground—no, it couldn’t be. He blinked but the same material glinted back at him. Was the ground made out of metal?

“Paladin!” the voice called out again, and he found himself squinting into the light once more as a figure approached him, “You have arrived!”

As the Verrion moved closer into his view, it took all of Lance’s willpower not to run. The alien was _terrifying_. Their body appeared to be modeled after a child’s misshapen Play-Doh snowman with the addition of two stubby feet at the bottom. Instead of arms, seven grotesque tentacles burst from their sides (though Lance was unsure if the odd number was due to an unfortunate accident or if it was common among these people). Though he didn’t want to step closer to find out, he was almost positive that there was some sort of pearly mucus dripping from the creature’s limbs.

“Greetings!” the Verrion’s chirping voice, he decided, was heavily misleading. As, for that matter, were their wide lilac eyes.

“Um, hi?” _Way to be eloquent, Lance, you’re nailing it._

The Verrion smiled at him, a toothy grin that reminded him of the anglerfish from Finding Nemo, “Come!” they commanded, “It’s hot out here. Inside! Inside!”

Lance stepped forward, his footsteps echoing oddly on the planet’s strange surface, resonating far deeper than they should have on solid ground, “Um...”

“Call me Hyrehall!” The alien offered as he trailed off wordlessly.

“Yes, um, Hyrehall, why is your planet’s surface made of metal?”

Hyrehall blinked at him, “It’s not the surface!”

Lance paused, confused, “It’s...not?”

They were nearing the castle now, and the building offered long shadows to relieve them from the light. Here, he noted, bathed in darkness as it was, the Verrion could almost belong in a nightmare.

“Of course not!” Hyrehall tittered, “It’s the roof!”

“The roof?” he questioned, but his heart was already pounding.

“Mmm hmm,” The Verrion hummed as the castle doors swung open, “For The Collection!” 

Lance stopped walking.

_The rumors._

“It’s just a rumor,” Allura had said when they had first stumbled upon the tales of the Verrion people while researching for the mission, “I promise, traditions like those have been almost extinct for decaphebes.”

_Almost._

“You’ll be fine,” Shiro had promised, ever the leader, “In and out.”

_In and out._

But neither of their words meant anything. Neither of their promises meant _anything_. 

_The rumors are true_.

Hyrehall made a weird gurgling sound (which Lance hoped more than anything was a laugh, he did _not_ want to be eaten or attacked today). 

“Don’t worry!” the alien noted a breath later, “You’re a guest! Alliance! Yes?”

“Yes,” Lance agreed hesitantly, but the word did little to quell the thundering of his heart. In the back of his mind, Red continued to pace, as persistent as crashing waves.

“Then come! Come!” the Verrion insisted, “There is much to see!”

***

Despite what Lance expected, Hyrehall did not initially lead him to The Collection. There were introductions to be made with the Verrion leader: King Ghernop (who also had seven tentacles), welcoming meals to be consumed (the servants, Lance noted as he pushed his slimy food around with his fork, had only five tentacles), endless amounts of stairs, and diplomatic conversations to be held.

Only after a meeting that seemed to drag on for vargas (though was certainly much shorter) and the king’s agreement to join the Coalition, did Hyrehall speak of The Collection again.

“Is it time, Majesty?” the alien chirped, lilac eyes flitting excitedly between Lance and their ruler, “He has been waiting! Yes! Forever!”

Despite himself, Lance felt a strange kinship with the Verrion’s impatience. It was a feeling that he knew all too well (though in this moment, it was notably absent).

“Yes, go!” the king commanded, “Show him what the Verrion have to offer! Our power!”

Hyrehall bared their teeth in that horrifying, tooth-filled smile and looked to Lance. The Blue Paladin’s stomach dropped.

“Come!”

_In and out._

Lance flashed his most charming grin in return, though it strained his lips to do so, “I’m right behind you.”

The alien hummed and then set off towards a pair of doors on the far side of the room, moving so fast that Lance had to scramble for a moment to catch up. His footsteps left hollow echoes on the metal floors as he chased after his guide.

_Red,_ he prayed silently as they reached the doors and a sense of unease chased its way down his back, _Remember what I said earlier. Don’t be afraid to pull a Rage Lion._

In the back of the mind, she stilled her pacing, pausing instead with bristling fur and sharpened claws.

“In!” urged Hyrehall, “Come!”

_Oh,_ thought Lance as they entered the space beyond the doors, _This is worse than the rumors._

“This,” said Hyrehall, “is The Collection!”

And a collection it was.

Pristine white walls glared at him, in stark contrast with the glinting metal floors and ceilings. The air carried a sterile scent, one laced with a concerning coppery undertone (upon noticing this, Lance decided to breathe only through his mouth for the rest of the trip). And, for as far as he could see, there were rows upon rows of creatures. They framed the hall on either side, peering at him from the glass viewing windows of their cells, some of them calling out to him as he passed.

“Paladin!” this was a small alien who shouted out, one who reminded him of a grizzly bear, “Paladin!”

“Help!” cried another, a creature with no eyes and two mouths.

Shiro was wrong.

“Don’t leave us.”

He couldn’t do this.

“You’re supposed to save us!”

Out. He needed to get out.

“Paladin,” Lance’s breath caught as he registered the speaker associated with this voice: a Balmeran. He paused, stepping away from Hyrehall and towards the glass to view the speaker better. As he reached the window, he splayed his fingers across the glass, but the Balmeran didn’t rise, only smiled sadly. “I have heard what you have done for my people,” they whispered softly, “Thank you.”

Lance opened his mouth to reply, but something caught his attention before he could respond.

Static began to buzz in the back of his mind—a warning sound as Red began to growl.

“Why aren’t any of your captives standing?” he asked carefully, turning to face his guide, “What happened to them?” for indeed, all of the aliens that Lance could see sported one or more legs wrapped with bandages or scars, and most were slumped against the wall of their cages. A select few were moving, but his stomach lurched as he realized that their halting movements were because they were _dragging_ the injured limbs instead of using them.

The Verrion gurgled, “The clipping!”

“You hurt them on _purpose_?”

Hyrehall gurgled again, “No! It is a precaution!”

_A precaution?_

Lance felt his lip curl as he glanced back to the Balmeran, who nodded sadly, rubbing the long scar across their knee that had caught his attention in the first place.

“Why?” he asked, voice wavering.

“So they do not escape! Some captives are crafty! Very crafty! We can’t have them getting away!” Hyrehall had the gall to smile with those words, “Come! We haven’t even gotten to our newest edition yet! Quite a rebellious one, he is. He’ll make you understand!”

Before Lance could protest, the Verrion set off again, moving so fast that he either had to follow or risk becoming lost in the maze of hallways and corridors. As he ran, the captives continued to call:

“Paladin!”

“Blue One!”

“Help us!”

“Please. _Please._ ”

Cage after cage after cage of trapped, injured aliens. Red growled in the back of his mind, and when he caught up with his guide he had half a mind to ruin their new alliance and shoot him right then and there.

“Here!” Hyrehall exclaimed as they stopped at last, “Now you’ll see!”

Scowling, Lance stepped towards the window his guide was motioning towards, his footsteps achingly loud on the metal floor. Never had he ever felt so alone. So helpless. He reached the glass and froze.

Lance _knew_ that face, even with the sunburnt skin and greasy hair pulled back into tangled ponytail. He knew it despite the sweat, and dirt, and blood. He knew that jacket, that voice, that angry desperation. He knew those wide violet eyes.

Red _roared_.

“Keith?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And thus ends the second chapter! Next chapter, we will return to Keith's POV and see how everything is playing out from his perspective!


	3. Melted Wax

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a little explanation: this chapter takes place before Lance arrives (it's sort of a "what was happening to Keith"). 
> 
> Just as a warning, this chapter also gets much darker than the two before it. Warnings for: injuries, blood, and medical trauma. There is also a section with mildly graphic child abuse (this is the third italicized section, and will be summarized in the end notes if you would like to skip it).

_The first time he broke his leg, he was seven years old and it was summer. He recalled that day with sharper clarity than the memories of his childhood bedroom. He remembered the way the shadows had crawled across the ground, melted and lethargic in the sun. He remembered the stolen Rocket Pop—a coveted treat that dripped down his hands and stained his tongue a bright cherry red. He remembered his father’s voice, the long drawl as he called into the hot afternoon. He remembered his own giggles, his scramble to escape before he was apprehended (and tickled for his crimes), the towering maple tree that he hauled himself up into._

_Keith didn’t remember what his mother’s voice sounded like, but the snap of the breaking branch lingered in his mind as clear as though the event had happened yesterday. It had been a second, a mere coinflip of a moment, that had led to the descent of his bubbling joy into absolute agony._

_He remembered his father calling out his name, the spinning of his head, the echoing words. There were sirens that day, a pair of crows in the sky as well—wheeling around each other as the ambulance drew ever close. He couldn’t tell their voices apart. Everything hurt._

_He remembered waking up in an unfamiliar room with his favorite stuffed animal, a ragged green hippo named Asparagus, nestled by his side. There was a doctor who said something about his leg, but he wasn’t old enough to know what the different bones were called, and all he knew was that it hurt and he had to wear a cast. He remembered picking red for the fiberglass coating and that his dad had drawn a lion on it before wheeling him out of the hospital._

_He hadn’t been allowed to play outside for two months, a restriction that he despaired because the ruling lasted both through the rest of the summer and the beginning of the school year. Those months had been agonizing beyond the aching pain in his leg, as he was forced to hobble around on crutches or have his dad carry him wherever they went. Even though he was only seven, the time had been plagued with restless nights and insomnia._

_His dad played his guitar frequently during those two months. The sound was a soothing one—a strumming melody that had allowed for Keith to focus on something beyond his frustration and pain long enough for his eyes to drift closed. He remembered the thoughtful way his father had plucked at the strings, a song about a woman who danced with the stars, and the gentle humming that had lulled him off to sleep._

***

_The ceiling is made out of metal._

That was the first thing that Keith noticed as he jolted awake in an unfamiliar room with the irritating presence of sunburn prickling down his neck.

Second: _This place smells sort of like blood._

Third: _Where am I?_

The last thing that he remembered was a seven armed alien with lilac eyes telling him something about Lotor. What was it the creature had said? Something about how he smelled? He gritted his teeth and mentally cursed himself for not paying better attention; that might have been useful information. Anything about Lotor was helpful. The Galran prince was practically an enigma.

 _As elusive as Bigfoot_ , Pidge would have noted if she were here.

Keith tilted his head, hoping to catch sight of something that would illustrate where he was. Anything that might give any indication about what had happened and where the seven armed alien (he assumed it was that alien who had kidnapped him) had taken him. Or, rather, he _tried_ to.

_I can’t move._

The fourth observation sent Keith into a panic, and he felt a dull ache in his chest as his breath hitched and his heart began to pound. He tried to wiggle his fingers, hoping that somehow his head was just a weird circumstance, but they refused to move as well. He could _feel _everything, from the bruise he had gotten on his knee three days ago in training to the itch blooming on his right cheek. He could blink and breathe, but besides that...nothing. He couldn’t even part his lips to call for help.__

He was trapped.

“Oh!” a familiar voice sounded somewhere to his right, a soft scuffling sound following after it, “You’re awake! Hyrehall thought that perhaps it would take you longer, but it’s never the same for different species.”

A long tentacle cut into Keith’s view of the ceiling, marring the silver with slimy green.

_That’s why the voice is familiar._

“You know,” the voice continued, and the tentacle vanished, “I said that you would wake up quickly, but no one listened to me, even though _I_ was the one who clipped the full-blooded Galra.”

Was that a note of scorn in his captor’s voice? Maybe he could use that against them somehow…

Something brushed against his leg, and a sense of foreboding filled the air. If he could have moved, Keith would have recoiled.

“Sorry about the lack of movement!” the alien said, likely noticing the panic in his eyes, “It’s not ideal, but the paralytic agent is necessary for the clipping,” it made a strange gurgling sound, “We can’t have you wiggling or flinching during the process!”

Keith’s mouth went dry.

“Don’t worry!” his captor chirped as though he was a young child getting a flu shot for the first time, “Your bipedal physiology is similar to that of the Alteans and the Galra! This shouldn’t take long at all!”

His heart began to thunder, so loud that he wouldn’t have been surprised if the alien was able to hear it too. The thing that had brushed his leg only moments ago wrapped itself just above his ankle.

 _Patience yields focus,_ he told himself, eyes frantically scanning the ceiling as three more of the tentacles followed: one around his foot and the other two positioned above and below his knee, _Calm down. You can’t get out of this while you’re panicking._

“Sorry about the prick!” the alien said.

And then something sliced into the back of his ankle.

***

_The second time he broke his leg, he was ten, and he woke up in the hospital alone._

_The second time was nothing like the first, different in nearly every way: from his cloudy memories of the event, to the electric green cast, to the notable absence of his father. The second time was cold. Cold both because the temperatures outside had ushered in a chilling December and because there was no one there to comfort him when he realized what had happened and began to cry._

_It was a week before Christmas, his leg was broken, and his father was dead._

_Later, he was told that he had been in a car crash, a fact that was presented gently as though he didn’t already know. As though he didn’t remember the blinding headlights through the falling snow, the skid of the tires on ice, his frantic sobs, and the dull emptiness in his father’s eyes._

_“We’re sorry, Keith,” the doctors had said, “Do you know how to get into contact with your mother?”_

_He didn’t even know what her voice sounded like._

_“Any other family?”_

_He was alone._

_A few days later, someone, a police officer or a social worker, he hadn’t been sure at the time, brought him a change of clothes and a hospital wheelchair. They told him that he was ward of the state now, asking him gently if he had anything at home that he wanted to grab before they left for the orphanage._

_He had nodded numbly, allowing them to help him out of his bed and into the chair. His cast was a sickening green in the otherwise dull room, and it mocked him; vibrant surface achingly free of lion drawings. He cried while they wheeled him out of the hospital._

_At home, the social worker (Marrian, she had introduced herself in the car) helped him collect his things. He took the practical items: his clothes, toothbrush, and pillow, and, after a moment of thought, grabbed three other things as well. The first was Asparagus, who looked a little worse for wear, but was hugged tightly to his chest after Marrian had fetched it from his room. Second was the red coat hanging in his father’s closet, the one that was hung carefully on the hanger, even though it was far too small for the man to ever wear. At ten, Keith was much smaller than the intended wearer, but he wiggled into it anyway, despite the social worker’s raised eyebrows. Third came the knife at the bottom of his father’s sock drawer._

_“No,” Marrian had said when he had asked her to grab it, “No. Keith, that’s dangerous.”_

_He set his jaw stubbornly, “It was my mom’s.”_

_They locked eyes for a long moment, and Keith felt his chest clench as he realized he was about to cry again. Luckily, Marrian seemed to realize as well, and her gaze softened for just a moment._

_“Fine,” she said at last, “But keep it hidden. If anyone discovers it, I’m going to say that you snuck it behind my back.”_

_As she went to fetch the knife, Keith decided that he liked Marrian a lot._

_Despite the pain in his leg and the ache in his heart, he smiled. A minute later, Marrian returned with the knife and watched as he tucked it carefully inside his jacket. She gave a satisfied nod, and three minutes after that, four days before Christmas, Keith said goodbye to his home._

***

He wasn’t supposed to touch the bandages.

His captor had given him a very strong warning about it, tapping on the glass with all seven tentacles to emphasize how removing the cloth could interfere with the healing process. 

“Soon!” it had told him, “The more you leave it alone, the less it will hurt!”

That had been hours ago, and Keith was beginning to grow tired of lying on the mattress in the corner of his cell (the alien had called it a cage, but Keith had decided that word was both distasteful and demeaning. He wasn’t an _animal_ ).

On top of that, his leg hurt like hell.

Gritting his teeth against the pain, he heaved himself into a sitting position, leaning against the wall as he considered the bandages. He didn’t remember much of what had happened while he was paralyzed because he had blacked out a few seconds into the process, but the swath of bandages gave him a pretty good idea.

The cloth was thick, layered enough that, though Keith could smell the blood, it had yet to seep through the fabric. True to the tentacles that had twined around his leg right before the alien had begun, the wrappings began at his foot and continued up to his knee. He tried to shift the limb to get a better angle, but the pain it sparked brought tears to his eyes.

_Nope, not doing that._

He scowled, glaring at the bandages in the hopes that doing so would tell him something about what had happened. The pain was almost unbearable, but then again, pain could be misleading...couldn’t it? 

A small frown crossed his face as he considered the wrappings again.

“Don’t touch them,” the alien had ordered.

Keith had never been good at following orders.

The resulting process of removing the bandages was agonizing, and Keith was forced to stop multiple times when the pain became so overwhelming that white spots began to dance in his vision. Sweat beaded on his brow as he inched forward with his task, and as he reached the last layer, he was shaky and exhausted.

“C’mon,” he hissed, wishing that Lance was there to egg him on and help him push through the agony, “Last one.”

His fingers trembled as he unwound the final stretch cloth, and as his eyes caught on the skin below he had to fight the urge to vomit.

What had his captor called this process? The clipping?

Deep, oozing incisions made their way down his leg, the wounds held together by a generous amount of thick stitches. The sutures covered the back of his ankle and traced their way up his calf to his knee, where they wrapped around the joint like their own morbid sort of tentacles. He reached down, and his fingers came back coated in blood.

Once, when he was younger, he had gone to the zoo with his father. While they were there, he saw an eagle, and he asked why the animal didn’t just fly away. His father had explained that the bird’s wings were clipped, meaning that it was unable to fly. After learning that information, Keith had cried so hard that they had to cut their trip short, and it wasn’t until after a hug and a cone of mint chocolate chip ice cream that he was able to calm down at all.

Now, as he stared at his leg, Keith could barely hold back the tears. The more at he looked at the stitches, the more he recalled the Garrison’s basic anatomy lessons. The more the pain lanced through the limb, the more he felt his heart begin to sink.

 _In and out,_ Kolivan had said in what now seemed like some sort of cruel joke.

Keith felt his resolve break, and he tilted his head against the wall as the tears began to spill down his cheeks.

He wasn’t walking out of here any time soon.

***

_The third time he broke his leg, he was fifteen, and he almost died._

_In the five years after the car crash, he had bounced from foster home to foster home, staying in some for a little as two weeks, and in others for almost a year. Some families had been better than others, the range stretching from almost-family to borderline abusive, but none of them had ever been as bad as the Lewiers._

_Mr. and Mrs. Lewier had no children, and when Keith first arrived he had been relieved to discover that he wasn’t going to have to share a room with someone older and larger than he was. Though he was by no means scrawny, his short stature and dangerous temper were quick to get him into trouble, and other children always found it incredibly amusing to poke him at until he exploded. The fights that resulted had caused multiple foster parents to call his social worker, and more times than not he was sent back to the orphanage within a day._

_It would be nice, he decided, to be left alone for a little while._

_Too quickly, he realized his mistake._

_Due to never having children, the couple was unequipped for taking care of a fifteen year old boy. Mr. Lewier (or Tom, a Keith was required to call him) drank too much and talked too loud. Mrs. Lewier (who he was forced to address as Rachel) drank even more and was easily irritated by even the smallest things._

_Keith quickly became accustomed to nights spent without food and days where he was forced to miss school because he was locked inside of his room. Bruises bloomed on his arms, and he was forced to wear his jacket whenever he went out even though it was only September._

_The Lewiers called him selfish, undeserving. Some nights, after they drank, the insults became even worse, and Keith often fell asleep with the words still ringing through his head._

_He felt like a trapped animal._

_The night where he almost died began the same as most others: with an anxious Keith and two already drunk adults seated around the table for dinner. Keith stirred the soup in front of him with a frown, but didn’t lift the spoon to his lips._

_“Oh, just eat it!” said Rachel, who was already on her third beer, “It’s fucking soup!”_

_Keith glared at her, “It’s a cream based soup. I’ll get sick.”_

_“So you’re allergic to milk now, huh? How convenient.”_

_“I’m lactose intolerant.”_

_“Sure you are,” this was Tom who spoke, slightly less drunk than his wife but still slurring his words._

_“I am!” Keith knew where this was headed, “It’s in my file. I promise—”_

_“You ungrateful piece of shit,” Rachel scowled at him, “We take your dirty orphan ass in, give you a roof and a bed, give you food, and you act as though you’re the most entitled fucking kid on the planet. Eat the damn soup.”_

_“I can’t,” Keith tried to protest, “I—”_

_He broke off with a yelp as one of Tom’s hands grabbed his wrist and hauled him out of his seat._

_“C’mon,” he growled, and Keith could smell the alcohol on his breath, “Or do I need to remind you where you go when you misbehave?”_

_The basement._

_Keith growled and tried to pull away, but it was already too late, and Tom was much larger than he was. Before he could no anything, the older man had opened the door to the basement._

_“Come back when you’re ready to behave,” he said with a rueful smile, and then Keith was falling._

_The stairs to the basement were concrete._

_He heard the snap as he landed wrong, an all too familiar sound that was followed quickly by the smack of his head against the stone. For a few seconds, he blacked out, and when he came to he found himself lying dazed and in pain at the bottom of the stairs._

_Everything passed in a hazy blur. Somewhere, he could hear shouting, could hear footsteps. His leg ached, his head spun. A woman who he didn’t know knelt by his side and said something about calling 911. There were sirens and more shouting. Someone lifting him. The cool outside air. He could see flashing lights, could hear a desperate voice telling him not to fall asleep, but his head hurt too much and he couldn’t help but close his eyes and succumb to the darkness._

***

They called this place The Collection. 

Keith discovered quickly that he was not the only one here, that there were other aliens trapped just as he was in what must have amounted to thousands of other cages.

“Quite a collection! Yes!” one of his captors hummed when he asked about it, “Species from all across the universe!”

Keith scowled, glaring as it re-bandaged his leg, “You treat us like animals.”

“Mmm,” the alien agreed, “Some of you are quite feral! We must use precautions!” It pulled on the bandages for emphasis, and Keith yelped.

“Why?” he asked, hoping a different tactic would help.

The alien considered him for a moment, “A display of power and...understanding.”

“Understanding?”

His captor paused, “You are new. I forget. You will know soon enough,” the tentacles that weren’t attending to his leg wiggled in the air, “I have lingered too long! Hyrehall will be growing impatient!”

“Who’s Hyrehall?” Keith asked, but the alien ignored him as it finished with his bandages and stood.

“You will understand soon, half-blood.”

_Soon._

An indeterminable amount of time passed, but the alien stayed true to its words. When it came back, this time with two more of its kind, and he was injected with the paralyzing agent before being carried somewhere and placed onto a table, he understood. 

The pain was unbearable as they cut into his chest, but he was unable to black out like he had the first time because one of them injected him with something that sent him shooting back awake whenever his eyes began to close. With sickening dread, he realized what was happening, and he couldn’t help but let the tears leak from his eyes as the aliens began to poke at his organs and ask him yes-no questions about them.

“Does this hurt?” One blink. Yes.

“Are these things,” a poke, “how you breathe?” One blink. Yes.

“Is this your heart?” Two blinks. No.

“This?” One blink. Yes.

“Interesting,” one of his captors said, and his stomach lurched. The pain as it probed at him was almost unbearable. Far worse than anything he had ever experienced. Tears leaked from his eyes, and he could do nothing but let them fall.

He understood now. Yes, he understood.

These aliens weren’t just collectors, they were scientists. 

And they wouldn’t stop until they knew every strength, every weakness, of every last creature in this universe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...and do they have a full-blooded human yet? Will Keith be rescued? Is our Blue Paladin in danger? Who knows!
> 
> Also, this fic will now be moving to once-a-week updates. I'm not 100% sure what day of the week that'll be yet, but it will probably be either Wednesdays or Saturdays depending on my schedule.
> 
> Summary of the 3rd italicized part: Keith lives with an abusive foster family who are prone to drinking and violent outbursts. When he refuses to eat a cream-based soup bc he is lactose intolerant, the couple gets angry and he is forcefully dragged to and shoved down the concrete basement steps, resulting in a broken leg and a concussion. The police and ambulances arrive soon after and Keith is brought to the hospital.


	4. Drifting Feathers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On Wednesday! As (sort of) promised. Shhh, posting it at 10:30 at night still counts.

“Lance?” Keith’s voice sounded weak, as though it was taking all of his willpower to focus on saying that single word.

Lance saw red, and he turned to Hyrehall with a scowl, “Let. Him. Out.”

The Verrion’s lilac eyes glanced between Lance and Keith, “I apologize, Paladin! But I cannot!”

“He’s a Paladin of Voltron. Let him out now, or this alliance is off.”

Hyrehall smiled at him, those anglerfish teeth gleaming in sickeningly bright lights, “This is _your_ alliance, not ours. You want us for your Coalition, and we’re happy to comply, but we’ve warded off the Galra for decaphebes! We can do it without Voltron!”

A rumbling sounded in the back of Lance’s mind. Red’s growl—a dangerous sound, one brimming with heat and anger. Lance scowled.

“Voltron will attack you. We’ll tear this place down.”

Behind him, he heard Keith pound against the glass, and he whirled back around to face his friend’s wide violet eyes.

“Is that a threat, Paladin?”

“Lance,” Keith warned with a violent shake of his head, “No. I’m not worth it.”

Lance pressed his hand against the glass, casting a pained look to the bandages wrapped around his friend’s leg. Keith glared at him, eyes pleading for him to leave, to run. The Blue Paladin stared at him for a long moment and shook his head.

 _I’m not worth it,_ it was a phrase that Lance knew as well as his mother’s laugh and the smells of Varadero. A phrase that burned in his chest, in his nightmares, and often kept him awake long into the night. It ate at him, gnawing constantly as it searched for moments of weakness. Normally, it would give him pause, but today...today it was wrong. It wasn’t true for him, and it wasn’t true for Keith. Not today.

Lance Mcclain didn’t leave people behind.

“Sorry, Mullet,” he said before turning back to Hyrehall.

And Keith Kogane never stopped fighting.

“I’m not threatening you,” he replied, flashing the largest, most diplomatic smile that he could, “I’m making a deal.”

Though they weren’t his favorite type of movie, Lance had seen a number of hostage films before they had left Earth. They were always similar—tense and sort of slow. And they always had the same rules.

Rule number one: Someone is always bluffing.

“A deal?” Hyrehall asked, lilac eyes narrowing, “What are you offering?”

Rule number two: It’s almost never about the money (though, Lance noted, there was no money involved in this situation, so it was possible that this rule didn’t always apply).

“Lance,” Keith hissed again, a different type of warning than before.

Rule number three: Go big or go home.

“What do you want?”

Behind him, Keith groaned.

Hyrehall’s smile widened, “If you want a specimen from our collection, we need a replacement.”

Lance felt his heart sink. He couldn’t bring another helpless alien here. Couldn’t sentence someone else to a life trapped like a zoo animal in one of these small, bland cells. No one deserved that type of fear. That type of pain.

No matter how much he wanted to save his friend. No matter how much he wanted to prove that they, _both of them_ , were worth it, he couldn’t do it.

If he endangered someone else, he didn’t think that Keith would ever forgive him.

He didn’t think that _he_ would ever be able to forgive himself.

What sort of Paladin would he be if he allowed others to get injured, _tormented_ , just to further his own goals?

“No.”

The Verrion blinked, though they didn’t appear to be surprised by his answer, “I suppose that’s that then,” they reached a out a tentacle and tapped the glass, “It’s for the best, though. The other buyer will be here in a varga or two.”

Wait.

“Buyer?” Lance repeated, fumbling over the edges of the word as though he hadn’t ever said it before. It tasted fuzzy in his mouth. Unreal. Something curdled in his gut, and he felt the acrid sting of bile on his tongue. Suddenly, he found that he couldn’t breathe.

_In and out. In and out. Out. We need to get out._

He was going to lose Keith.

“Yes!” Hyrehall’s tentacles wiggled, “They offer something much better than this specimen! As it is merely a half-breed, we are willing to make the trade!”

 _It_. 

He saw the hunger in the Verrion’s eyes. Saw the way they looked at Keith, at his bandaged leg, the way they sized him up as though he were prey. Every last drop of his common sense wailed at him to run.

_Out. Out. Out._

Somewhere in the hallway, Lance could hear someone shouting for him, their calls of “Blue Paladin!” echoing off the walls. A searching ricochet that he could neither dodge or catch. A plea, so helpless, so unanswerable, that he could do nothing but wait and let it hit him. Could do nothing but hope it missed. No matter how hard they cried out, he knew he couldn’t save them.

He couldn’t even save anyone.

Oh, how he desperately wanted to run. To leave and find Hunk, find Allura, find _Shiro_. Find help. Someone stronger that him who would know what to do without this awful stab of grief that twisted deeper with every pound of his heart. He couldn’t do this. He didn’t want to be brave anymore. He just wanted to run.

_Out._

But Keith would be gone by then.

_Run._

But maybe…

_Get help. Get help. Get help._

If he could save even one, then maybe, _maybe_ , they could save the rest later.

_Get. Out._

He glanced at Hyrehall. At Keith. At the rows upon rows of cages. Heat bloomed in his chest as Red roared. Once. Twice.

 _I’m going to save them,_ Lance decided then, as the voices continued to echo and two pairs of purple eyes locked with each other—one hungry, the other furious— _I’m going to save all of them._

Despite the pounding heart that shouted at him to run, he stood his ground.

_Save them._

“I’m not an _animal_ ,” Keith hissed, causing the Verrion to smile again and tap the glass louder.

“This specimen is quite vocal!” they noted to Lance, who did his best not to bristle at those words, “Usually, we clip only the limbs, but sometimes it is necessary to take additional precautions,” Hyrehall cast a meaningful look in the former Red Paladin’s direction. It was the type of look that sent shivers down Lance’s spine, its effect not unlike that of the glares his sister used to shoot at him whenever he made her upset.

This was a _you’re in trouble, and I’m telling if you don’t do what I say_ sort of look.

 _Except,_ Lance noted as his friend flinched ever-so-slightly away from the glass, _it’s 1,000 times worse._

Hyrehall grinned.

Keith’s jaw snapped closed with an audible _clack_.

Angry and hot, like the stem of a teakettle, Red hissed, sending a wave of burning static through Lance’s mind.

“What do you want?” He growled, and scaring himself with how venomous his voice sounded.

The Verrion turned away from Keith’s cell and stared at him, purple eyes blinking slowly with audible _pips_ , “I told you.”

Lance felt his lip curl, and something inside of him curled as well, wilting at how cruel he was being. “Tell me,” he hissed, and the growl in his breath was a red flag for how desperate he truly was.

The wiggling of Hyrehall’s tentacles paused. The alien straightened for a moment, shuffled its small feet. _Plip_ went their eyes. _Plip plip._

“The lion.”

It was not an answer, Lance realized, for the Verrion cared little for claiming a part of Voltron, but it was something. An invitation. The offer for an attempt at a deal.

“No.”

“We have no human in our collection,” the alien paused to scan Lance carefully, “The Champion, perhaps?”

_The man traumatized by a year of torment and capture. A man who deserves nothing but peace and rest._

“No.”

“Just his arm?”

_A mark of that man’s torture. A gruesome thing. But something that gives him purpose._

“ _No._ ”

“An Altean?”

_The ones who have lost everything. Who stand alone._

Lance bristled, “Never.”

“How about the princess’ mice?”

_Who keep her happy. The only thing she has from a destroyed world._

Lance furrowed his eyebrows, “No.”

“Hmm,” the Verrion said, scanning Lance once again and glancing at the bayard that had materialized in his hands by instinct during their conversation.

Behind the alien, inside of his cell, Keith’s eyes widened as they caught sight of the rifle. He began to mouth something furiously at Lance, but Hyrehall spoke cut him off, snaring Lance’s attention.

“A human eye.”

_There’s the fighter and the leader. The genius and the engineer. There’s the princess and the advisor. And one more. The seventh one. The goofball. The…the sharpshooter._

Lance froze. Blinked. His hand shook as he raised it to his face, tracing the fingers carefully over his own eye. Hyrehall nodded.

“And you’ll let us go?” he asked, voice no longer harsh and cruel, but exhausted and terrified, “Both of us?”

“Yes.”

Lance didn’t meet Keith’s eyes. _Couldn’t_ meet Keith’s eyes.

_I’m going to save them._

He held his hand out.

“Deal.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's called Clipped Wings, and what's a sharpshooter without his perfect aim?
> 
> Sorry that this chapter was a little shorter! I went into it fully intending to get to the next little "twist" but this section ended up being a little bit longer and that would have made it waaaayyy too long, so I decided to end it here instead. Now I have to figure out how to mess with the next part and figure out how to angle is from Keith's perspective instead of Lance's like I was planning!
> 
> Oh, and before I forget:  
> Rule number one: Someone is always bluffing.


	5. Falling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's Wednesday...somewhere. Not here. Here, it's Thursday. But, technically, it's still Wednesday somewhere else in the world.

They left Lance’s armor with Keith.

It was a quick decision. A strange decision. One made as an afterthought only seconds before Lance was whisked away, but the tentacled alien didn’t think twice about doing so, not when its glee about the Blue Paladin’s deal glinted in its wide lilac eyes.

“Quick!” it said as soon as Lance’s hand fell from their handshake. “Before the buyer comes!”

“Now?” Lance asked, still refusing to meet Keith’s eyes. “Don’t you need to like, prepare a surgery room or something?”

The alien shook its head. “No! Now!”

 _Lance,_ Keith wanted to shout, _I’m not worth it_ , but a sharp glare from the alien told him that, unless he kept his mouth closed, its earlier threat about muting him permanently would come to reality.

Keith didn’t care much about his voice. Injured as he was, he wouldn’t be much help to a team anyway. But returning to that room...being trapped on that table again…

 _It’s not worth it._ An ache of guilt, of selfishness, churned in his gut, but it muted quickly as the pain in his leg, his chest, flared. _Not again._

He bit the inside of his cheek and stayed silent.

Lance frowned, the budding realization that he had not thought this through clear in his furrowed eyebrows and twitching fingers. For a brief moment, Keith hoped that he was going to reconsider. That he would leave and protect himself. That he would run far away from here and leave Keith to suffer alone.

 _I’m not worth it._ His heart pounded. He watched as the fear, brief and delicate as a blink, flashed in Lance’s eyes, so quick that he almost missed it.

_Run._

But, despite Keith’s wishes, his friend would never leave anyone.

“Okay,” Lance breathed, and then, _finally_ , he glanced at Keith, “But can I leave my armor in there? I don’t want to get any blood on it. That might worry the team a little bit when we get back to the castle. Allura might take it the wrong way.”

It was an awful excuse, considering that the loss of Lance’s _entire eye_ would panic the princess far more than a little blood, but the alien obliged with a wave of its tentacles.

“Of course! Now, come! We can’t lose time!” It started off down the hall far quicker than any creature with legs so small could manage, waving at Lance to follow.

Lance nodded, lips pursed in firm resignation of his fate. “I’m sorry,” he said to Keith, pressing his hand to the glass for a brief moment, “but I can’t leave you.”

Keith met his friend’s gaze with a sad smile.

_You can._

“My helmet,” Lance said, lowering his voice, “Contact the team.”

It was a good idea. A _smart_ idea that helped make sense of Lance’s strange desire to strip himself of all defense, but Keith frowned, _Why hadn’t Lance contacted them already?_ The other Paladins would have dropped whatever they were doing in an instant if they learned what was happening here. They were a _team._

The Red Paladin opened his mouth, prepared to risk his vow of silence, but Lance turned away and disappeared down the hallway after the alien before Keith could reprimand him.

He scowled as his friend slipped from view, the expression rapidly transforming into a grimace as injured leg flared sharply with blinding pain.

_Lance could have saved himself._

A glance at the limb confirmed that blood was beginning to leak through the bandages.

_Selfless idiot._

He grimaced, air hissing through his teeth as he shifted, attempting to alleviate the throbbing of his leg but aggravating the injuries on his torso instead.

_Why didn’t he get help?_

The pain was the numbing sort. The type that made it difficult Keith to breathe and made him forget, for a brief moment, what he was thinking about.

 _Why?_ he wondered, snagging the word through the blanket of pain that threatened to suffocate him.

Why?

In truth, he knew the answer, though he didn’t want to admit it. Didn’t want to validate his friend’s sacrifice. Through the pain in his leg, through the ache in his chest, through the buzz of an opening cell door and the _thunk_ of Lance’s supplies landing a few feet away, he knew the the answer.

_“I’m sorry,” Lance had said._

There was no other choice. Contacting the team in the hallway would have alerted the aliens that something was wrong. That the civil alliance had passed over into hostility. If Lance had called for help, with the clear intentions of finding backup, all chances of rescue would have been off. He would have fared just as poorly as Keith.

Only this way, under the guise of negotiation, could both of them leave together.

 _And_ , Keith noted, glancing at the helmet only a few feet away, _now I can alert the team without any of the aliens finding out._

He shifted towards the armor, gritting his teeth against the bolts of white-hot agony that laced through his veins as he aggravated his wounds. His vision blurred at the edges.A wave of dizziness passed through him.

It was so close. _So close_. Only a few feet away.

 _A little more,_ he told himself through the pain. He had had worse. He had _lived_ through worse.

He could do this.

His fingers brushed the edge of the helmet, and Keith _reached,_ ignoring the inadvertent tears brimming in his eyes and the nauseating pounding of his heart. 

_Come on._

His hand closed on the the helmet’s visor.

Something in the back of his mind rumbled—a soft approving warmth.

Unwilling to waste any more time, Keith reeled the helmet in and slid it over his head, flipping on the comms as he did so. He tried to ignore the pang in his chest that came with the familiar weight of the Paladin helmet just above his shoulders—the sense of ease that it brought him despite the situation that he was in.

“Hello?” He asked softly, heart pounding in the feeble hope that one of the other Paladins would—

“Lance? What’s going on? Why are you whispering?” Hunk’s voice crackled back, warm and tinged with concern.

Keith couldn’t help it, his voice shook as he responded, “Hunk?” 

“Keith? What are you...where’s Lance?”

“He wouldn’t leave me. He was selfless. I—” he broke off with a with a hiss as his leg throbbed again, and Hunk took the chance to break in.

“Leave you? Keith, what’s going on?”

“The mission went south. He tried to buy us some time but—”

“Time? Keith, what—” The Yellow Paladin quieted for a moment, and Keith imagined his eyes widening in realization, “ _Shit._ Shiro! Turn your comms on, it’s Keith, something happened.”

The last part was not directed at the Red Paladin.

The comms clicked and Shiro’s voice, calmer but just as worried as Hunk’s, spoke up, “Keith, I need you to start from the beginning. Why do you have Lance’s helmet?”

“I was on a mission with the Blade,” Keith began, unsure exactly how far back Shiro wanted him to go, but figuring the extra information couldn’t hurt, “I screwed up, got kidnapped, woke up...here—”

“Verriol,” Shiro supplied, a note of anger poisoning his voice (though it was not an anger directed at Keith. It was too dry, too sharp for that).

Keith grimaced. “They locked me in a cell. As part of their _collection._ ” He spat the word out, bitter and foul. “They did something to my leg. I don’t...I don’t think I can walk. Lance refused to leave without me. He made a deal with them, pulled the selfless card and agreed to trade his...his eye. For me.” He didn’t mention how his captors had cut him open. How they had poked at his insides and treated him like a scientific specimen. How the incisions they had made into his stomach and chest were something straight out of _Frankenstein._

Shiro cursed softly under his breath. “Where’s Lance now?”

“In surgery. He convinced them to leave his armor with me.”

“Do you have his bayard?”

Keith scanned the pile of armor, gaze catching on the pronged handle of the weapon. “Yes.”

“What about Red? Do you two have a way to get off planet?”

“I don’t know about her. This place is made out of metal. I don’t think she could get in unless she wanted to risk hurting someone. But,” he paused considering the rumbling warmth in the back of his mind, “I think she’s unharmed.”

Shiro loosed a heavy sigh, “How bad is your leg?” 

Keith considered the blood staining this bandages, the faint scent of iron in the air, the way that it refused to respond properly, even after he blocked out the pain, “Not good.”

That was an understatement.

He didn’t want to say it out loud, didn’t want to worry his brother, didn’t want to cement the small fear that had been festering in his gut ever since he had unwrapped the bandages the first time, but...he wasn’t even sure if this was something a healing pod could fix.

He had seen some of the other aliens in this prison through the window of his own cell. He had seen the scars on their legs, the way they limped through their small metal rooms. He had seen the panic in Lance’s eyes when the Blue Paladin’s gaze had caught on his injured leg.

“If Lance helps me, I’ll be fine,” he said, the lie thick on his tongue.

_He wasn’t fine. He would never be fine after this._

“Keith,” Shiro began, in a quiet way that suggested he knew the Red Paladin was lying.

“Shiro,” he started, hoping to say...what? That he was fine? That he was in pain? That he was scared? That he was _terrified_? “Shiro,” he began but didn’t finish because just then, at that moment, the door to his cell hissed open and he was met with a familiar blue gaze.

Keith felt his mouth go dry as he took in Lance’s face. As he noted the wide patch of gauze obscuring the place where his right eye was supposed to be. As he noted the _pain_ evident in the slight wobble of the Blue Paladin’s lip, the utter exhaustion in the slump of his shoulders.

He didn’t know whether he was concerned or relieved that the surgery had finished so quickly.

“Hurry!” a voice piped up behind Lance, “Go! Help him up! Time is short!”

“Keith?” Shiro repeated, but Keith didn’t respond. He watched, numb, as Lance stepped into the room, as he paused to glance back at the alien just outside the doorway before starting forward to help Keith to his feet.

Keith felt Lance’s arms around him, a hug so desperate that he wasn’t quite sure which one of them it was for. Despite himself. Despite his frustration with the Blue Paladin’s stubbornness, he sank into the embrace, wincing as the wounds on his chest jostled against Lance.

“I’m so sorry,” Lance whispered.

Behind him, from the doorway of the cell, the alien smiled—a jagged grin of nails and broken keys.

Keith’s blood turned to ice.

“Lance—”

A gurgle and a hiss interrupted him as the alien laughed and the door slid closed, locking them inside.

“Keith?” Shiro asked for a third time, as though he had sensed the urgency in his brother’s silence.

_They had been so close._

“Shit,” he hissed.

_So. Close._

Lance’s gaze, wide and panicked, rose to meet his.

_And now Lance’s sacrifice was for nothing._

Behind them, the heavy weight of a tentacle slapped against the window.

Lance tensed against Keith’s chest, and when he spoke, his voice was venomous. “You liar. Traitor. We made a deal.”

“ _We_ did,” a familiar chirping voice agreed, “but the King is in charge of The Collection.”

Keith could feel the blood running down his chest, the aching pain in his leg. He could smell the iron in the air. Could hear Shiro repeating his name. Could see Lance’s eye, wide and panicked. But in that moment, it was only that alien’s voice, its cheerful chirp and throaty gurgle that forced the breath from his lungs and sent his heart racing.

“And he’s always wanted a human.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the hopeless becomes even more hopeless. But at least Hunk and Shiro know now...right? Right? 
> 
> P.S. Hyrehall is a wonderful liar.


	6. The Ocean Below

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, gosh, sorry that this update took so long! Look at me, promising weekly updating and then not updating for almost a month! How rude! I'm so sorry, and hopefully my update schedule will be a little more regular in the future! Please enjoy!

_He’s always wanted a human._

The words rangs in Lance’s head as Hyrehall slipped away, a wide, toothy grin still plastered across their face. Beside him, Keith pounded his fist against the window and shouted hoarsely after their captor, the helmet doing little to muffle his words as he listed off every expletive that he knew in both English and Korean. Lance could hear the hum of Shiro’s voice across the comms, the calls of the aliens in the other cells, Keith’s hiss of pain as he shifted his injured leg the wrong way.

_He’s always wanted a human._

“Keith,” he murmured, wincing as the act of speaking sent a bolt of pain across the place where his eye used to be.

The former Red Paladin continued to pound at the window, and Lance found that his shouting had shifted from Earthen languages to a guttural growling that he assumed to be Galran.

 _Did the Blade teach Keith how to curse?_ Lance frowned. The wrong question for the wrong time. That was a conversation for later, perhaps over dinner with the team where they could laugh freely over Hunk’s cooking. Not now. Not here.

Here, it was possible that they could die.

_A human. A human. A human._

“Keith,” he repeated again, louder, trying his best to ignore the pain in his eye socket and the white spots dancing across his vision. “The helmet. Let me talk to Shiro.”

_The had been so close._

At the mention of Shiro’s name, Keith froze, his hand pressed against the window in a way that reminded Lance of his interaction with the captured Balmeran. His lips, which were just beginning to part for a new string of curse words, pressed together, defeated. As he dropped his hand and pulled the helmet off, spilling the loose strands of hair from his haphazard ponytail across his sunburnt shoulders, Lance’s stomach clenched at the clear signs of his friend’s misery.

He had seen Keith without the helmet through the window, but in his surprise, his panic, he hadn’t had time to study him beyond a couple quick glances. Now, he couldn’t help but intake sharply as he scanned his friend’s face.

Like his neck and shoulders, Keith’s cheeks were ripe with sunburn, and the skin was beginning to peel around his ears and nose. His hair was tangled, greasy, and the ponytail trying to hold it all up displayed clear signs of having been worn for days. His violet eyes, normally bright and warm, were clouded with anger and pain. Dark crescents shadowed beneath them, and bloody fingerprints trailed up the sides of his face.

Lance frowned as he noted the blood, and Red growled softly in the back of his mind as he realized that the fingerprints were human. A second glance confirmed that Keith’s fingers were stained with blood, and a third discovered the red leaking through the bandages on his leg and the dark staining on his chest.

“Don’t,” Keith said. A warning as Lance caught his gaze and opened his mouth to ask. He held out the helmet, a distraction.

Lance kept his eyes trained on Keith’s red-stained hands, but he took the helmet without argument. Later. He would bring it up later. After they got help. After they had time to process what had happened.

He slipped the helmet over his head. “Shiro?”

“Lance?” The Black Paladin’s voice was strung thin with an urgency that Lance had never heard, “What happened? Are you alright?”

Lance shifted his gaze from Keith’s hands to his bandaged leg, winced as his eye twinged with another bolt of pain. He thought of Keith’s shouts, of Hyrehall’s smile, of the other aliens in the cages, of the room where they had taken him to remove his eye. He had been awake while they did it, had experienced the exact moment when half of his sight had disappeared. He wondered if Keith had been awake when they ruined his leg.

“No,” he admitted, and, despite himself, he could feel his throat clench. “No, we’re not.”

The comms were silent for a long moment. Lance wished that he could crack a joke to reassure their leader that they were fine, that it wasn’t as bad as it looked, but he couldn’t bring himself to make light of this situation. Not when it seemed to get worse by the minute.

“Okay,” Shiro said at last, and Lance wasn’t sure who he was trying to reassure, “Okay, let’s start with the injuries. Is anyone’s life at risk?”

Lance studied the bloodstains on Keith’s clothes and bandages carefully. “I...I don’t think so. My only injury is my eye, and it hurts a lot but I can still walk and see, and I don’t _think_ that it’s bleeding too badly…” he paused to gently probe the bandages across the socket, and was relieved to pull his fingers away dry. “Keith’s a lot worse off. He definitely can’t walk on his own, and his leg and his chest are both bleeding. I don’t know how bad the wounds are.”

“Could Keith get up if you helped him?”

Lance considered the question as he glanced back to Keith’s leg. “Probably? I don’t think it will feel all that great, but you know how he is.”

“As long as he’s alive, there’s still fight left in him,” Shiro agreed.

Beside him, Keith’s lips turned up in the faintest traces of a smile, and Lance realized that he could probably hear everything that Shiro was saying over the comms. A likely bonus to his Galra heritage.

“What do we do?” He asked, moving closer to Keith so that he could hear better. “I have my bayard and armor, but we can’t get out unless something opens this cell. And even then, it’s a long walk back to Red.”

A long walk with nowhere to run and no one to help. He hated to admit it, especially in front of Keith and Shiro, but Lance didn’t like their chances.

Keith’s eyes widened at Lance’s words. “Red, is she alright?”

A warmth in the back of Lances mind signaled that yes, she was, and he relayed the news to his friend, though it was little more than a small comfort. They both knew that this place was made out of metal. She couldn’t help them until they got outside.

“But if we get outside,” Keith said upon hearing the information, “then we could make it.”

Lance repeated Keith’s words for Shiro and added his own thoughts at the end. “Could Pidge do something? There are a lot of…” he trailed off, stomach clenching as he searched for the right word, “a lot of other prisoners here. If she could shut off the locks on the cells, even just for a small sector, it might cause enough chaos for us to get out.”

That was another conversation for another time. As soon as they escaped, Lance was going to see to it that the rest of the aliens were freed as well. He couldn’t leave them here. He _wouldn’t_ leave them here.

“It’s possible,” Shiro said, and Lance could imagine the hard set of his jaw and the glint in his eyes, the face that always appeared when their leader was beginning to formulate a plan. “I’ll have to ask.” A few muffled words in the background, a command to whichever other paladin, likely Hunk, was nearby. “Hunk told her and Allura what was happening. We’re returning to the castle now.”

The other missions. Right. With everything that had happened, Lance had forgotten that he wasn’t the only paladin visiting an alien species. His stomach churned. Did the others have to abandon their missions to come save him? Had he ruined multiple chances of alliances because he couldn’t get Keith out on his own?

“You’re our first priority,” Shiro said, and Lance wondered if he had accidentally spoken out loud. “Everything else can wait.” A pause, another muffled command to Hunk. “Lance, I want you to put your armor back on. Keith said you still have it. After that, you need to assess the damage done to Keith’s leg. I want you two to be able to move at a moment’s notice. We might not have a large window for escape.”

Keith scowled at the mention of his injured leg, but Lance nodded, already rising to fetch his armor. “Noted. Anything else?”

“I’m going to turn off my comms while I fly and patch you back in once we get back to the castle. You should be fine until then, but if something happens, try to contact Pidge or Allura. They’re closer to the castle than we are and should be able to help quicker.”

“Okay,” Lance said, kneeling down as he reached his armor to begin donning the different components. He reached out for one of the leg pieces and froze as his fingers brushed against his bayard. “Shiro?”

“We’re coming,” the Black Paladin promised. “We won’t leave you.”

Lance’s eye, an afterthought throughout the conversation, flared with sudden, agonizing pain. “It’s not that,” he murmured. “It’s...it’s my eye. If we have to fight, I’m not sure how well I’m going to be able to aim a gun.”

Shiro was quiet for a long moment, and when he spoke, his voice was laced with a venom that Lance had never heard before from their stoic leader. “Then we’re going to get you out without a fight.”

A promise.

The line clicked, and the comms went silent.

Lance turned his full attention to his armor, assembling the pieces as gracefully as he could manage with his impaired vision and depth perception. His hands shook more than he cared to admit as he pulled each piece on, and his heart thundered in his chest as he finally registered their situation.

With Shiro there to reassure him, he had still felt panicked, but everything had still seemed manageable. There had been no time for worry because he had needed to share information as coherently as possible. There hadn’t been time for distractions.

But now, with the other end of the comms silent, Lance couldn’t stop the fear rising in his chest.

They were trapped. Keith couldn’t walk. One of his eyes was gone. Permanently. Red was stuck outside. Their cell was locked. Keith was bleeding mysteriously from his chest. Rows upon rows of aliens called for his help. He couldn’t aim his bayard. Keith looked exhausted. _He_ was exhausted. His hands were shaking. His heart was pounding. They were trapped. Trapped. Trap—

“Lance!”

At Keith’s voice, Lance whipped his head up, sucking in a big, shaky breath as he met his friend’s eyes.

“Calm down,” the former Red Paladin said, his violet gaze wide and unflinching. “We can’t get out if you’re panicking, and we _need_ you in order to get out. I can’t get out of here without you. You have to calm down.”

“What if we can’t?” Lance whispered, the fear curling around his pounding heart, squeezing it.

“Can’t what?”

“Can’t get out. What then?” Tears were beginning to spring to Lance’s eye. What if he never got to return home to his family? “What if we’re stuck here?”

Keith shifted towards him, pain flashing across his face as he jostled his leg. As he watched his friend’s lips turn down into a grimace, Lance suddenly felt very selfish about crying over his eye when it was possible that Keith might not be able to walk again.

“We won’t be,” Keith promised as Lance walked back over to him. “Stuck, I mean. They’ll get us out.” It was less of a promise and more of a wish, a hope. “And then...then the healing pods will fix everything.”

Lance knelt down next to him and reached out for the bandages around his leg, wincing at Keith’s hiss of pain as he began to unwrap them. “I don’t think that the healing pods can regenerate an eye.”

“Maybe not.” Keith’s voice was strained, his teeth clenched against the pain as Lance unwound the bandages. “But Hunk and Pidge can probably make you a new one. One that can shoot lasers or something.”

Was Keith trying to make a joke? Lance would have smiled if their situation hadn’t been do dire. If the bandages around his friend’s injured leg hadn’t been stained so terribly with blood.

“Lasers would be cool,” he admitted, but the words tasted like ash. Now wasn’t the time for joking around. Not when they could be trapped here. Not when their injuries could be permanent. Not when—

“Lance—” Keith warned as the final bandage fell away, but it was already too late.

Bile rose in Lance’s throat as he took in Keith’s leg. The limping aliens, the scars on their legs, the bloody bandages...none of it had prepared him for this.

“Keith,” he whispered as he stared at the incisions. At the trail of bloodied stitches tracing their way from his heel to around his knee. The dark line tracing up his leg, seeping red—almost black—at the edges. The undeniable path that made Lance’s stomach clench as he followed it across Keith’s skin. The hollowness in his friend’s eyes that told him that his friend already knew what it meant.

The sutures stretched from Keith’s Achilles tendon, through the muscles in his calf, to the tendons and ligaments in his knee. Who knew what the Verrions had done to those vital parts of his leg, and after sitting for so long without medical attention…

“I don’t think that a healing pod will fix it,” Keith whispered, his voice almost inaudible. Lance could hear the tremor as he spoke, a panic akin to his own. “I...Lance.”

 _Keith._ Why did this have to happen to Keith? As he stared at his friend’s injured leg, he wished more than anything that he had been captured in Keith’s place, that it was his leg, not his friend’s, that was littered with stitches and oozing incisions. He was the sharpshooter, he could do his job without a leg. But Keith? Their swordsman? Their fighter?

Lance didn’t know a lot about Keith’s life before the Garrison. The former Red Paladin had never opened up much to the team about his personal life and had always stayed quiet whenever Pidge talked about Matt or Lance brought up his home back in Cuba. He didn’t talk about family. About home. Lance knew that Keith was an orphan because one of the other students at the Garrison had discovered the information and taunted him for days until Keith had snapped and broken his nose with a well-aimed fist in the dining hall, but he didn’t know much beyond that. He didn’t know how his friend had grown up, where he had grown up, what had made him so quiet and angry. All he knew was that Keith’s life had been full of running. Running away from a childhood that couldn’t have been kind, from the Garrison who threw him out, from his heritage, from his friends, and now…

Now he couldn’t run anywhere.

“Keith,” he said again because there was nothing else to say. He couldn’t lie. He agreed with his friend—a healing pod probably wasn’t going to fix this. Like Lance’s eyes this...this was permanent.

Keith clenched his jaw, and Lance watched as a wall slammed down across his gaze. “Can you just wrap it back up? We need to see if you can help me stand, and I don’t want to get blood on you.”

The message was undeniable: conversation over.

Lance frowned, but he did as his friend asked. This would be another conversation for another time. A safer time. When Keith had the support of his friends instead of the looming threat of a malicious alien race.

Here, their only focus was getting out. Concern could wait. Discussion of what their injuries meant could wait.

Lance stole a glance as Keith’s chest, still stained with mystery blood.

Whatever _that_ was could wait.

He wound the bandages back around the injured leg, wincing every time Keith hissed or flinched in pain. His hands, stained now with the former Red Paladin’s blood, shook as he secured the wrappings.

“Help me up,” Keith said as he finished, reaching out for Lance’s shoulder, and the Blue Paladin obliged, grateful for the distraction.

He pulled Keith’s arm over his shoulder and reached his own arm around his friend’s waist, stabilizing him as he tried to rise and balance on his single good leg. Keith gasped as, for a moment, he put his weight on the wrong limb, and Lance winced as tears sprang to his friend’s eyes.

“If you can’t do it, we can find another way. I can carry you or—”

“I can do it,” Keith hissed, a vow to himself more than it was a vow to Lance. “I just need you to stabilize me.”

Lance met his friend’s eyes. “That’s what I do best.”

For a second, the faintest trace of a smile crossed Keith’s lips, and he nodded, violet eyes sharp and determined, before gritting his teeth and hauling himself the rest of the way up.

Keith trembled as he leaned against Lance, and his chest heaved as he fought against the pain that came with moving his injured leg and (what Lance assumed) the injuries on his chest. Tears glistened in the former Red Paladin’s eyes as he adjusted his good leg beneath him, but when he spoke, his voice was the lightest that Lance had heard all day.

“And now?” It was as much a question as it was a promise. A promise that they could do this. That they could get out of here. Together. They would survive. Together. They would heal from this.

Lance smiled, the action true and genuine.

“And now,” he said, voice steady as he thought of their team, of Shiro’s own promise.

_We won’t leave you._

“And now we wait.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonding moment 2.0...sorta? 
> 
> Up next: we're going to have a short interlude with the team to see their side of things and the plan that they're forming to get the boys out! I'm debating a little about who's POV to put it in...so what do you guys think? Should the next chapter be from Shiro's POV or Pidge's POV? 
> 
> If you liked this chapter (or if you spotted any errors...oops!) then please drop a comment below!


	7. Interlude I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so bad at updating on a schedule. I feel terrible. I say this every time, but I'll try to be better about updates in the future. This chapter was really difficult, and I have no idea why I decided to write it in the P.O.V. that I decided to write it in because it took me forever to figure out how I wanted things to play out. 
> 
> Also, for everyone who voted: Shiro won the vote, but I just had to write this chapter from out favorite Green Paladin's perspective. I promise though, there WILL be Shiro P.O.V. chapter in the future! ;)

When they had left for their missions earlier that morning, Pidge had never thought that things would go so wrong.

Yes, there was the _possibility_ of danger, but with Paladin missions, wasn’t there always? There was always an element of risk to every mission, but it usually ended up meaning nothing. Pidge had known that there were rumors about the Verrion people, but she also knew that Lance was prone to overreacting and blowing things out of proportion. He turned stubbed toes into bullet wounds and small arguments with Keith into a full-blown rivalry. Despite his whining, she had thought that he would be fine. They _all_ had thought that he would be fine.

Now, as she raced back to the castle in Green, she wasn’t so sure.

“Say that again, Hunk?” she said as she broke out of Crythorpia’s atmosphere. “You were panicking the first time. I need you to calm down.”

On the other end of the comms, the Yellow Paladin released a heavy breath. “Lance was right. The rumors are true. He and Keith are—”

“Wait,” Pidge interrupted, “Keith?”

Her stomach swirled with dread and foreboding. How did _Keith_ end up with Lance? Wasn’t he supposed to be with the Blade? She felt like she was going to be sick. When Hunk’s voice had first crackled over her comms, the panic in his voice told her that something had happened, and she had assumed it to be something relatively normal, like an injury or a mechanical failure. Still bad, but fixable with a little bit of help. But now, with addition of Keith, she knew that is was much, much worse.

“Hunk?” she whispered, hating how her voice wobbled.

The Yellow Paladin was quiet for a long moment. “Keith contacted us through Lance’s helmet,” he said at last. “Said that he was kidnapped on a Blade mission. That he woke up in a cell and that they did something to his leg. When Lance showed up, he tried to play the selfless card to get him out, but the sacrifice backfired and now they’re both trapped.”

Keith, injured, locked in a cell. Lance, worried and selfless, backstabbed.

“Sacrifice?” she asked, even though she didn’t want to know. She had read the rumors about the Verrions. She knew that they had a fascination with species that weren’t their own.

Hunk was quiet again, and she imagined him rubbing at the skin beneath his headband, the way that he always did when he was nervous or agitated. “His...his eye. For Keith.”

_Shit._

Lance, their sharpshooter, down an eye and thus, for the time being, down his perfect aim. Even with his bayard—which she assumed that he still had since he had access to his helmet to contact Hunk—there was only so much damage that he could do that didn’t rely on luck.

Keith, their swordsman, with an injured leg—something that made Pidge’s stomach churn and had her hoping that _for once_ her research was wrong and that it didn’t mean what she thought it meant. She hoped that it was an injury from a fight before he was kidnapped and not from the Verrions themselves. If it was inflicted intentionally, then the the chances that it would heal normally were...well…

_At least he’ll have the support of all of us,_ she thought, and then instantly regretted it. Who was she to jump to pessimistic conclusions, to assume the worst? Her friends were _fine_ , she had to believe it. She had to have hope.

It was hope, not fear, that had helped her find Matt.

She squared her shoulders. “Hunk?”

“Yeah?”

“How long has it been since you’ve talked to them? Any imminent danger?”

For a long moment, the Yellow Paladin was silent, save for a muffled murmuring that she assumed to be with Shiro. She caught snatches of “lying” and “strong” and “together” and when Hunk finally spoke again, she was relieved to find that his voice carried a deep rumble of determination. “Only a few minutes. We have to work fast to make sure that the Verrions don’t do to Lance what they did to Keith, and we aren’t sure of the time slot. How close are you to the castle?”

“Docking now,” Pidge replied, for, indeed, during the course of her conversation and contemplation, Green had reached the castle.

“Good girl,” she murmured as her lion flew into the hangar. Green was no Red, but when she wanted to fly fast, she really could fly _fast_. “Remind me to tune you up with some new tech once this all blows over.”

Green purred loudly, and Pidge allowed herself a small smile before slipping out of her seat and exiting the cockpit.

“I’m in now,” she said as Green’s mouth opened to provide her with a ramp, bathing the emerald glow of her lion with sharp blue light. “How far are you?”

Her boots echoed off the ramp as she descended. _Click. Click. Click._ A beat in tempo with the soft pounding of her heart. She had to consciously force herself to stop holding her breath as she awaited Hunk’s response.

“Fifteen minutes? Give or take? I think Allura’s a little behind us. Do you think you can manage with just your brother and Coran until then?”

She laughed, but the sound was empty, falling short before it even had the chance to dissipate fully across the hangar. This wasn’t a time for laughter, not when their friends’ lives hung in the balance. “I’m going to have to aren’t I?”

“Yeah.” Hunk paused, likely messing with his headband again to ease his mounting anxiety. “Yeah, I guess so. I wish you didn’t have to—”

“I know my tech, Hunk. Don’t worry about me.”

The Yellow Paladin sighed. “I know you do. That’s not what I meant. I just wish that I could help now instead of...worrying. I don’t...they’re our friends, Pidge. Lance is my _best_ friend. I can’t just sit here and do nothing.”

“You aren’t doing nothing.” It was as much of a promise to him as it was to herself. They _couldn’t_ be doing nothing. She needed confirmation that she could save them.

“It feels like I am.”

“You _aren’t_ ,” she insisted, heating that last word with a bite of aggression that knew would make Keith proud. “You aren’t. I promise. Just get here. Don’t worry about anything else.”

“Okay,” Hunk said, though he didn’t sound sure. And then, louder, with a larger pinch of courage and hope: “Okay. I’ll see you in a bit.”

The comm cut out with a soft _blip_ and static rushed into Pidge’s ear, filling her head with an insistent buzzing until she reached up and removed the helmet from her head.

“We can do this,” she murmured to herself before setting her jaw in determination and picking up speed until her walk transformed into a sprint.

_We can save them. We can save them. We can save them._

The castle, eerily silent, echoed with the sound of her pounding feet, her worried breath.

_Every second counts._

Like Green, Pidge wasn’t the fastest member of the team. She wasn’t built for athletic finesse like Keith or Lance, nor strength like Hunk, Shiro, and Allura. She was _small_ , she was built for hacking and mischief and computers. Her pace from her hangar to the bridge was usually slow, a way to collect her thoughts and cool down from battle. Even if she was in a hurry—like when a member of the team was injured—she was often the last to arrive to were the rest of the group had gathered due her short legs and stature. Most days, Keith could probably _walk_ faster than she could run.

But today?

Today her speed rivaled even that of the former Red Paladin. She skidded down the hallways, startling the mice as she whipped around corners. Her heart threatened to burst out of her chest as she sprinted up two flights of stairs, but she couldn’t bring herself to slow because _every second was valuable_. She didn’t want to be the reason that things got worse.

“Coran!” she shouted as she ran down the last hallway to the bridge, “I need diagrams of Verrion and their castle. Their prison-thing. Anything detailing their layout. Matt, security system.”

“Already on it, Number Five,” Coran called back.

“Bypassing anti-hacking security,” Matt chimed in.

With a final burst of speed, Pidge hurtled into the control room, ignoring her brother’s wide eyes as he caught sight of her flushed cheeks.

“Trying out for a marathon?” he quipped, though the light of his small smile didn’t reach his eyes.

“What do you have?” she replied, ignoring him in favor of their larger concern, though she made a mental note to challenge Keith to a race once he got back (and he _was_ coming back. He was going to be fine). It would be fun to see if she could even come close to beating him.

“Not much,” he brother admitted, tacking on a small “yet” to the statement as he frowned at his screen. “Though there might be something here with ‘specimen cages.’ I’m not sure...give me a few minutes here, Pigeon.”

Pidge frowned, worrying at her lip. “Coran?”

“Take a look for yourself,” the Altean offered, waving her over. “I could describe the layout, but I think it might be better for you to see it.”

Pidge walked over to him, studying the maps of the planet’s layout, fixating primarily on the layout of what she assumed was their equivalent to a castle.

“Where are they?” she asked, figuring that it would be best to find an escape route that began with her teammates instead of having to snake its way back to them.

“Here,” Coran pointed at a small rectangle labeled A-G2D45. “Number Three’s tracker is still sending out strong signals. So I’m as certain as a Gloznap that they’re in there.”

“What is _there_?” she asked, noting that there were quite a few rectangles, all very close together, in the section of the map that Coran had indicated. Notes and segments of information that she had read when researching the planet and its people flitted through her mind, but she shoved them away, hoping that they weren’t what she thought. Hoping, even with everything that she had heard about her teammates’ capture that it wasn’t as bad as they thought, that it was still okay—

“They call it The Collection,” Coran said, his voice laced with something heavy that Pidge had never before heard from him. “Just as both Lance and your information warned. I believe that each of those rectangles is a form of cage, each with a different species within. The collection must be in the thousands, with all of the time that they’ve spent building it...decapheebs…” he trailed off, almost wistful as he gazed at the map.

Pidge glanced at the advisor, her heart shattering as she realized the true extent of the mess they had stumbled into. This was nothing like they had encountered before. It wasn’t a single planet-bound monster or a Galran fleet, this was...it was another alien race acting independently. It was terror beyond the Empire. It was something awful, horrible, that had existed for innumerable years, had involved aliens from all across the universe, and yet...it hadn’t been stopped.

Why?

“Pidge?” Matt’s voice broke her out of her thoughts, and she tore her gaze away from Coran.

“Yeah?”

“It’s...I’m still working on the security. The locks. But I found something you need to see. It looks like a video feed.”

_A video feed?_

“Here.” Matt tapped a few buttons on his screen, and with a small _beep_ the visuals that he had been looking at appeared on one of the large screens next to the one housing the map.

The video was set in a monochrome of gray, with staticky pixels and freezes interrupting it, but the figures in it were unmistakable.

Bile rose in Pidge’s throat as she watched her friends. Lance paced back and forth like a caged animal, gauze obscuring half of his face, the other half twisted in undeniable pain. Behind him, Keith sat propped against the wall, Lance’s helmet in his hands as he watched the Blue Paladin walk across the small space. His right leg was stretched out in front of him, and Pidge’s heart ached as she noted the mass of bandages wrapped around it, the dark stains that could be nothing except blood.. His eyes looked hollow, devoid of the usual fire that raged within them.

“Oh,” she whispered.

_Oh._

Sometimes, she forgot how young they all were. How, if they were back on Earth, she probably would have just gotten her driver’s license. That Hunk, Keith, and Lance were just barely old enough to vote. Even Matt and Shiro, _Shiro_ , in all of his wisdom and skill and glory, were barely older than teenagers. Both were only 23, they had their whole lives ahead of them, and instead? Instead, both of them had spent over a year as prisoners, and were now caught in the middle of an intergalactic war.

And the rest of her friends? Hunk, who just spent the last half hour learning that his best friend had been kidnapped. Lance, who couldn’t stop pacing, who had lost an entire _eye_ because he couldn’t leave his friend behind. Keith, who despite his tough-guy facade looked so broken and _scared_ , who had been captured as an experiment.

And her, who had never felt more helpless than right now as she stood, frozen, watching her friends suffer.

In the grand scope of the universe, they were all children. Still young. Still learning. Still growing. They should all be facing the innumerable opportunities of the future. Life should still be hopeful.

But Lance had lost an eye…and it was possible that Keith wouldn’t be able to walk again.

She could almost hear the doors slamming. The lost possibilities, everything that neither of them ( _all_ of them) could never do again.

_It’s not fair._

“Matt?” she whispered, and she hated how fragile her voice sounded. Fragile, like glass shattering and petals falling. Like tears rolling down someone’s cheeks, the word “goodbye.” She was supposed to save the universe...but in this moment? That was all she was. Young and scared and fragile.

“Yeah?”

“Can you turn it off?”

“Yeah, sure,” his voice took on a concerned, older-brother edge. “Hey, are you—”

“ _Fine._ ” She wasn’t fine. “Just need to focus. Coran can you zoom in?”

Matt didn’t say anything, and she found herself unable to look in his direction.

“Coran?”

The advisor narrowed his eyes and nodded. “What are you looking for, Number Five? Perhaps I can help you find it instead of scouring the diagram from a “zoomed-in” perspective.”

Pidge tilted her head. What _was_ she looking for? “An escape route? Something that’s close to where they are. I don’t think Keith can get very far, especially not quickly. Maybe a back entrance to the facility? Something that leads out with the fewest number of encounters. An escape tunnel? Maybe a skylight? I could work with any window really. Is there an area that’s being rebuilt?” She paused her rambling for a moment to scan the map, pausing as her gaze caught on a detail she had missed earlier. Gears inside her head, so vividly imagined that they were almost real, clicked into place. “What about that ventilation tunnel?”

Coran twirled his moustache. “It’ll be as tight as a Whoolzap’s burrow, but it could work.”

“It’s not far from the cell,” Matt agreed, “A short walk, but they could manage, barring any unforeseen obstacles. Minimal conflict and outside involvement. Judging by the Red Lion’s trackers, she isn’t that far from where the shaft lets out. She can protect them once they’re outside. I just need to bypass the locks to their cell…” he trailed off with a frown, eyebrows furrowing to create a deep crease above his nose. “It’s a good idea, Pidge, but...I’m worried about Keith.”

“He’s going to have to walk no matter what. Lance can support him, carry him if he needs to.”

“Not through a ventilation shaft he can’t.”

“He...” Pidge started but then paused with a frown of her own. Of course Keith couldn’t crawl through the tunnel, he would need help just to walk. The pain that it would cause him...quiznack she was so stupid. She couldn’t hurt him like that. There had to be another way.

“They...” she started again, glancing up at the map once more. “They could…”

But she couldn’t finish the sentence.

She couldn’t finish it because, try as she might, she couldn’t find any other ways out. No doors, no windows. No exit except the way the had come in, which had far too many Verrions for them to ever fight through, and the ventilation shaft, which would be a nightmare for Keith (and she would not be the cause of his suffering. She could never, ever, be the cause of her friend’s—he _family’s_ —suffering).

They were trapped. All of her hope was for nothing. Unless they wanted to straight-up attack the Verrion people, putting thousands of innocent prisoners right in the line of fire, there was no way to get them out.

“Not that it changes anything,” Matt said, shattering the silence that was beginning to creep across the room, “but I can bypass the locks. Get them out of the cell at least.”

Coran set a hand on her shoulder, and Pidge jumped, surprised by the sudden contact. “I do not think that we should put such little faith in Number Four.”

She glanced up. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Coran said with a smile, before pressing a few buttons linking the room to Lance’s comms, “Number Four? Number Three? Are you there?”

“Coran?” Keith’s voice, weary but determined, crackled back.

“Indeed, my boy. A question for you: how badly are you injured?”

“I’m fine,” the former Red Paladin responded, a small hiss a few moments later undermining his insistence.

Despite herself, Pidge smiled. “We know you’re lying, Keith.”

“Pidge is with you?”

“It’s beside the point,” Coran replied, waving his hand even though Keith couldn’t see it. “My boy, if I were to tell you that the only way out of there was through a ventilation shaft, what would you say?”

Keith was quiet for a long moment. The comms buzzed with static and breath. Somewhere in the distance, footsteps echoed down a hallway. Pidge debated calling his name, just to see if he was still there or not.

“I...” he said at last, “I...I would say that I can do it.”

And there was something in that statement, in the thick rasp of his voice and his blunt honesty, there was something that burned. Something that seared through every doubt that Pidge had, every worry and fear. Something the rekindled her determination. That lit her once again with hope.

_You can save them._

“Okay,” she murmured to herself, and then, louder: “Okay.”

She could get them out. She _would_ get them out.

“Are you listening?” she asked, the question directed not only to Keith, but to Matt and Coran, to Shiro and Hunk (who were just now entering the room), and to herself. “Because I think I have a plan.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good news: Rescue is on the way!  
> Bad news: It isn't going to be fun for Keith :(
> 
> Next Up: We return to our favorite Red/Blue duo, and the escape begins! (hopefully more on time than this chapter. *Side-eyes the writer of this fic because she really needs to stop with all this nonsense and stick to an update schedule*)
> 
> If you liked this chapter, please leave a comment down below! I would really appreciate it!♥♥♥


	8. Impact

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is super late, BUT it's also waaayy longer than the other chapters. You can thank Senior Skip Day for that...otherwise it would have probably taken me like three more weeks to finish this chapter. Yikes.
> 
> Three things before you go in:  
> 1\. Warnings for death, injury, violence in this chapter  
> 2\. I am not a doctor, nor have I ever been in a fight before. Details relating to such things might be slightly inaccurate.  
> 3\. Please let me know if I made a mistake and accidentally referred to Lance's "eyes" instead of his "eye." I usually catch myself on those mistakes, but not always...
> 
> Enjoy!

“What if it doesn’t work?”

“What do you mean?” Keith frowned, glancing up from his leg, where he was trying to secure a piece of Lance’s leg armor as a brace. “And stop pacing. You’re driving me crazy.”

“I mean,” Lance said with a sigh, pausing (thankfully), in the middle of the cell, “what if it doesn’t work? What if we caught? They’ll separate us for sure. Raise security measures.” He cut his gaze to Keith’s leg. “Clip me too.”

“It’ll work,” Keith replied, tying a strip of Lance’s undersuit around his leg and the armor with a wince. _It has to work._

Though Lance didn’t look convinced, he bit his lip and nodded. “Do you need any more strips?”

Keith shook his head, trying his best to keep his eyes from landing on Lance’s right leg—where dark skin gleamed in place of armor and tattered undersuit. Where his injury had caused the Blue Paladin to endanger his own safety. “No. Shiro said that we should probably keep it to a minimum remember? Minimize the bulk and keep you as protected as possible.”

Lance narrowed his eyes, likely trying to recollect that bit of information from the innumerable things their leader had touched on when informing them about how they were going to escape. “Still…I don’t like it.”

“You don’t have to like it.”

“I kinda do,” Lance was rambling now. Keith could tell that the nerves were beginning to get to him from the way he was unable to keep his hands still—playing with the edge of his bandage, running fingers through his hair, tapping on his armor—it was almost worse than the pacing. “I’m just _worried_ ,” the Blue Paladin continued. “Like not for the team or anything, they’re smart and awesome, I know they’ll do anything to get us out. But you can barely stand. And Pidge said something about a vent? _Dios_ , you can’t crawl through one of those right now.”

Keith opened his mouth to argue, but was barely able to bite out the beginning of an “I’m fine” before Lance barrelled on.

“Also, you’re bleeding mysteriously from your chest, so that’s great. And I can’t shoot. Can’t _see_ fully. Even if we get out…” he trailed off here, gaze flitting downward suddenly, likely to mask the dawning of a realization that Keith himself had already come to twice—both a couple of days ago in relation to himself, and a little over an hour ago for Lance.

_Even if they managed to escape, things weren’t going to be the same._

_They would_ never _be the same again._

__

__

“Just worry about now,” he murmured, even though a fear and panic identical to Lance’s was beginning to creep up his chest and into his throat. He gave the strip of undersuit that he was tying a small tug to emphasize the point and did his best to give his friend a reassuring smile through the tears that arose from the pain.

Lance frowned, but he didn’t argue—for which Keith was grateful. He was only barely keeping himself together, grounded by the pain spiking through his leg and the pep talk Shiro had given them over the comms after laying out the plan. If he had to focus on anything beyond either of those two things…

_Later. You can worry about it later._

“How long until we have to move?” he asked, glancing up at the Blue Paladin even though he already knew the answer.

_“You have to be ready to move at any time,” Shiro’s voice, usually calm and controlled, had frayed with worry as he spoke. “We only have one shot. You need to be ready.”_

“How long?” Lance repeated, his frown morphing into a look of confusion (Keith was never one to forget plans) and then, a beat later, realization: “Oh! I...you...you need…”

The Blue Paladin’s face crumpled as he trailed off, shooting a not-so-subtle glance at Keith’s leg. Keith winced at the action, at the tears that sprung to his friend’s eye from an injury that wasn’t even _his_. If this was how _Lance_ , optimistic, happy _Lance_ reacted to his injury, even after being stuck with him in a cell for hours, then how was Shiro going to respond? Would he feel responsible? Flash back to his own trauma? Would the garish stitches send Hunk’s stomach churning? Would Pidge—

_Stop. Worry. Later._

Keith sucked in a breath, clenching his teeth against the pain that he knew was about to come. “I need help up.”

“Damsel,” Lance replied, but there was no bite to the word. It hung in the air, stale, as he draped Keith’s arm over his shoulder and hauled him to his feet.

_Later, later, later. Could he even face later?_

As he stood, Keith couldn’t help but lean heavily into the other Paladin. He slumped generously against Lance, burying his cheek in his friend’s shoulder with a grunt as he accidentally put pressure on his bad leg and it crumpled beneath him.

“Woah, hey, I’ve got you.” Lance tightened his grip around Keith’s waist, halting him from collapsing back onto the floor. “Looks like the brace is useless though, should of let me do it. Are you okay?”

“Fine.” He wasn’t fine. “Can we...” he gestured at the cell, hoping that Lance would get the message.

“Yeah, of course,” the Blue Paladin replied, adjusting his arm so that he could better support Keith’s weight as they prepared to take a few practice steps across the room. “Let me know if I’m going too fast.”

Keith nodded, not trusting himself to keep his voice steady as the pain from his bad leg (which was still taking too much of his weight and refusing to bend correctly, despite the brace and the way he attempted to keep weight off of it) and an ache in his side from where Lance’s fingers were digging, unknowingly, into the incisions that the aliens had made, were making him seriously consider the pros and cons of blacking out and just having Lance carry him.

The scared, selfish part of him wished that he could hide from the pain. That he could close his eyes and wake up wreathed in the chilling cryopod air. That all it would take was a short visit to the healing pods to make everything okay.

The other part of him—the part that he called logic even though that wasn’t quite accurate. It was sharp like logic, but also warm, tight and blanketing around his lungs and heart—would rather suffer in unbearable pain than leave Lance here in this awful place alone.

“Okay,” Lance murmured, a gentle reassurance that rasped deep in the other’s boy’s voice. A voice used to sing lullabies and calm younger siblings after nightmares. “Okay. We’ve got this. Ready?” 

Keith wasn’t quite sure which one of them the question was directed to.

He opened his mouth to affirm that _yes, he was ready, that the hesitation was burning more than the stitches were_ when Lance leaned into him and stepped forward.

It took all of Keith’s willpower not to scream.

Actually walking across the room was far worse than standing had been, sending jarring waves of pain up his leg that _would_ not _bend correctly to save its life_ and couldn’t help but soak the bandages with blood. A slight tugging at his skin made him wonder if he had pulled his stitches, and, as his vision began to blot with dark spots, he wondered if the first part of him—the scared, selfish one—would win after all.

“Keith?” Lance’s voice broke through the haze of pain, and Keith blinked, surprised to find both that they had already made it halfway across the room and that the Blue Paladin’s pupil was blown wide with concern.

Keith met his friend's eye and offered him a weak smile. “I’m fine. Almost to the other side, and then we can—”

The sharp blaring of alarms cut him off, and he barely had a moment to blink before the room’s lights shut off and they were left in the faint green glow of the facility’s emergency lights. Across them, the cell door hissed open as the locking mechanism clicked off.

“And that’s our queue,” Lance murmured under his breath, drawing the and out far longer than Keith felt was necessary. “Ready for worst hike of your life, Mullet?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be.”

 _Ready as he_ had _to be. Because if they didn’t get out, if they didn’t escape, if they didn’t—_

He didn’t have time to finish the thought as Lance stepped forward, and he was forced to follow or risk collapsing onto the ground (which would almost certainly make the already awful pain radiating throughout his body downright unbearable).

“Clear for now,” Lance hissed as he peeked past the doorway into the back hallway that stretched behind their cell. “But we need to be fast.”

_Shiro’s voice, echoing through his mind: “You can’t be stealthy. Not with Keith’s injury. The best you can hope for is getting out fast. With the alarms Pidge sets off, the place should be thrown into chaos. You’ll have a window to move as long as you hurry.”_

__

__

And, indeed, the shrill screech of the alarm ricocheting off of the surrounding walls was almost deafening. It reminded Keith of the fire drills from elementary school, loud and ringing, except this was 700 times worse and it was layered with the heart-wrenching howls and shouts from the aliens in the other cells.

The selfish, scared part of him was glad that their cell opened into a back hallway. Glad that he didn’t have to walk past all of those cages, all of those faces, and do _nothing_.

The other, indescribable part of him screamed for him to turn back. To fight. To save them.

_We’ll come back._

Why did that promise feel so empty?

“We’ll be back,” Lance echoed beside him, though Keith hadn’t voiced his thoughts out loud. The Blue Paladin’s jaw tightened as though he was trying to keep himself from crying. He clenched his fist that wasn’t supporting Keith. Unclenched it. Rubbed at the gauze over his missing eye.

“To raise hell,” Keith agreed, though his stomach clenched at thought of returning here. At the thought of seeing these walls, these cells, the prisoners—

 _The tentacles buried in his abdomen, emerging coated in his blood._ His _blood. The blood seeping out from black stitches, through layers of bandage. Something slicing into him, touching his heart. His knee refusing to bend—_

“Keith!”

Keith blinked. “I—” But Lance wasn’t listening.

The Blue Paladin shook his head. “No time. We’ve gotta move. And now. Someone’s coming.”

Keith didn’t need to be told twice. He pushed his fear away, burying it deep into the back of his mind, and focusing instead on moving forward.

One step. Two. Adjust the way his arm draped over Lance’s shoulder. Three. Four, five, six. Ten. Fifteen. Twenty-two. Round the corner—

 _“Shit.”_ No sooner had they turned the corner than Lance begun to backpedal. Cursing under his breath as he fumbled for his bayard. “Shit. Shit. _Shit._ ”

Keith, spat out his own profanities, spewing a string of expletives that would have had Shiro washing his mouth out of soap if he had so much as heard a single syllable.

_We were so close._

Normally, he wouldn’t have worried about the line of Verrions that stood at the other end of the hall as they rounded the corner. Normally, the five enemies before them would have been an easy challenge, only about as difficult as level three on the castle’s training deck, especially with the Verrions’ low, blob-like maneuverability. But Keith wasn’t wearing armor, and his maneuverability was hampered too. As for Lance…

Keith watched as his friend’s bayard morphed into its blaster form, taunting the Blue Paladin as he glanced at it with his single eye. Lance bit his lip, blinked once, twice—as though doing so would re-set reality and change the truth. When nothing happened, his dark skin paled, and the hand clenching the weapon began to tremble.

The Verrions moved closer.

Lance withdrew his arm from Keith’s waist and shifted into a fighting stance, barely giving Keith time to catch himself on the wall before he fell over. The Blue Paladin took a shaky breath, murmuring something to himself as he raised his gun, but Keith knew that the attempt, though valiant, was fruitless.

Lance pulled the trigger.

The shot went wide.

 _Pow._ Too high. _Pow._ Through the gap between two of the Verrions. _Pow._ Past one of their captor’s tentacles, nicking the limb but failing to draw enough blood to slow the alien down.

“Lance,” Keith murmured as his friend lined up another shot. And then, louder: “ _Lance_.”

The Verrions were halfway down the hall now.

The Blue Paladin’s arms went slack, and the bayard’s form wavered. He took a step back, turning to allow Keith to see his eye—wide and panicked—and his bandage—stained with a haunting pupil of blood.

“I can’t shoot.”

“Lance—”

The Blue Paladin shook his head, lip curling in frustration as he glanced up at the Verrions who were growing closer by the second and then back to Keith. “I can’t _shoot_ , Keith. How are we supposed to,” he gestured with his bayard at the approaching aliens, “how do we fight them?”

Something, a burning presence, shifted in Keith’s mind.

“Lance.”

“We can’t get caught like this we only have one chance…”

The thing in Keith’s mind began to growl.

“If I had a sword, or something, then maybe,” Lance was borderline hysterical, as though adrenaline and terror had suddenly caught up to him, hitting simultaneously. He bayard glinted the color of fresh red blood as he shifted it nervously in his hand.

_Red._

“You don’t have a sword,” Keith said, his heart pounding in his throat as he glanced between the bayard and his friend. “But I do.”

Lance’s eye widened.

And then it wasn’t a growl in the back of his mind but a _roar_. A _lion’s_ roar.

Without wasting a second, Lance pressed the red bayard into his hands, nodding in unspoken understanding as he slung Keith’s free arm over his shoulder again and activated his shield. “Take ‘em down, Samurai.”

Keith didn’t need to be told twice.

Within seconds, the first of the Verrions reached them. Though Keith couldn’t move well, his arms were still fast. The red bayard blurred through the air as he sliced at the alien’s tentacles, first stroke severing through two of seven. The Verrion screeched, swinging three of the remaining tentacles at Keith’s wrist in an attempt to disarm him, but before they could even get close Lance swung his shield in the way, and they bounced off with three resounding thuds.

The Verrion paused, baring its teeth with a gurgling hiss, but Keith didn’t waste a breath. Before the alien could react, he drove his sword forward, earning a wet _squelch_ as the bayard buried itself in the alien’s torso and gray blood began to seep from the wound.

The alien slumped to the ground, but Keith barely had enough time to register that he just _killed_ someone before two more of the aliens were upon them.

The first of the pair attacked from Keith’s side, and it went down even quicker that its already fallen comrade—collapsing to the floor after Keith severed four tentacles with one swing and then drove his sword into its head.

The other Verrion attacked from Lance’s side, slamming its tentacles against the shield with a heavy _thud_ , one strong enough that Keith felt the tremors, even though he wasn’t touching the shield himself. Lance hissed in pain. “You hit _hard_ for such a playdoughy blob.”

The Verrion laughed, and Keith felt his stomach drop as he realized that the fourth of their captors was about to reach them (and this one had a _sword_ ), so there was no way that he could help the Blue Paladin. Though Lance’s shield could surely withstand two or three more hits, would it last through four? Five?

 _Thud._ Lance gasped, and Keith could see, out of the corner of his eye, his friend’s arm shake with the impact.

The fourth Verrion neared—just over an arm’s-length away.

“Didn’t they tell you?” Lance asked as the Verrion drew its tentacles back for a third strike—his voice deceptively light, as though he was telling a joke, but painted with undertones of disgust and anger.

His arm, despite the pain it must have been in from the heavy bombardment, straightened.

The fourth alien reached Keith, and it spat something at him that could have been a laugh or a threat but went unheard as Lance reached the punchline of his question, his voice dropping into a growl so deep and heavy that, had Keith not been on his side, it would have turned his blood to ice.

“You don’t bring tentacles to a shield fight.”

As Lance swung his shield at the Verrion, Keith found himself thankful that he couldn’t watch—too caught up in his own battle to dare a glance away. He was glad that he didn’t have to watch as shield met flesh, as a blistering crack rang out—the undeniable breaking of bones—and the wet mass of a body slumped to the floor.

It didn’t get back up.

_Three down._

Keith’s opponent raised its sword, eyes wide as it beheld its freshly fallen brethren. “You’ll pay!” it chirped in a voice too high for the battlefield, but the threat didn’t carry through as Keith’s sword severed the head from its shoulders.

And it was the same head, he realized as it fell to the floor, bouncing once, that had watched him with a gleeful grin as it had maimed his leg, destroying his chances of ever walking again.

_Four._

Keith couldn’t stop the tears from springing to his eyes as he looked away from the fallen alien and locked eyes with their final opponent.

“I already did.”

The Verrion, still standing, unlike his companions, at the end of the hall, began to laugh. And it raised a weapon that Keith had not noticed before with a trademark anglerfish smile.

“Keith,” Lance warned beside him. “The last one has a gun.”

The alien raised its weapon in agreement, and Lance barely had time to swing his shield in front of Keith as the shots rang out _pow, pow_ from the end of the barrel.

“We can’t get close enough for close combat,” Lance continued.

Keith frowned in agreement. “Not fast enough.”

 _Pow, pow._ Lance hissed in pain as a shot grazed the skin on his leg where the section of his suit was missing.

“And I can’t shoot,” The Blue Paladin continued, breathless.

“You could try. It’s worth a shot.”

“Not enough time,” Lance argued, a soft bite of warning in the words. “Can’t afford to miss—” he broke off with a gasp. “But your sword.”

 _Pow._ The shot glanced off Lance’s shield.

Keith raised the weapon. “What about it?”

“Throw it.”

_Pow._

“What!?”

“Throw it.” _Pow, pow._ Lance’s arm shook as he shifted the shield to block to more shots.

“I heard you,” Keith hissed, “But if I miss.”

Lance shook his head. “You can do it.” His lips twitched, the suggestion of a smile. “One shot.”

Shiro’s words: _One shot. One shot. One shot._

_Pow pow pow._

_We only have one shot._

“If this doesn’t work,” Keith vowed as he drew the weapon back, “I’m going to kill you.”

And then he let go.

Time slowed as the blade flew threw the air, flipping end over end as it passed through the field of gunshots. Keith’s leg pulsed in tandem with his heart, the pain, the adrenaline rising in his throat as his hand, empty, dropped back to his side. All three of them, Paladins and captor, watched, frozen…

As the sword hit home, burying itself in the Verrions’ skull.

Beside him, Lance loosed a breath, shattering time as he surged forward with a sharp “hurry” before the alien had even finished collapsing to the floor.

Keith complied, too overcome by relief to protest, even as the pain from his leg and his chest—leaking now from torn stitches—surged through his body to replace the numbing haze of battle.

“How far?” He gasped as they stumbled past the bodies, pausing only to grab the bayard.

Lance tightened his grip around Keith’s waist before pointing down the hall ahead of them. “Vent’s right there.”

“Has the team said anything?”

“Not yet. I think they’re too caught up in keeping systems here down and preparing backup to monitor our every move—wait, actually,” he raised his free hand to the helmet, “Shiro’s saying something.”

“What?” They reached the vent, and Lance helped deposit Keith so that he could sit against the wall as he fumbled with the grate.

“Uh, he says that we need to hurry because the systems are about to turn back on.” The vent cover fell to the floor with a clang. “And apparently there are cameras in here, so they’ll find us in seconds.”

“Great.”

“Yeah. Now,” Lance gestured to the vent, “start crawling.”

Keith’s leg ached at the very thought of maneuvering through that small space. He knew that he could probably get in there, could even crawl through the pain, but with their limited time? He shook his head. “No. You’re going first.”

Lance’s eye narrowed. “We didn’t agree on that.”

“We didn’t agree on me going first either. Besides,” he continued as he shifted from his seated position to balance on his hands and his good knee, bad leg stretched awkwardly behind him, “I’ll slow us down.”

“Keith—”

“No,” the Red Paladin barreled on, cutting Lance off with a growl, “ _No. _We need to hurry. Shiro said we had to. And I can move as fast as I can, I _will_ move as fast as I can, but the best way to ensure that at least one of us gets out is if you go first.”__

____

____

“No,” Lance argued, a gentle echo to Keith. “No, Keith, I already left _them_ behind. I can’t leave you behind too.”

“But if they catch up, then one of us—”

“ _No,_ ” Lance repeated, “I won’t leave you.”

_I won’t leave you._

Maybe it was something in the way Lance spoke. In the fire wreathing his words that was so familiar to Keith that he almost didn’t believe that he wasn’t the one speaking. Maybe it was the way Red shifted in the back of his mind—the lion the two of them shared. Maybe it was that scared part of him, the pulsing of pain. Maybe it was Lance’s bandaged eye, soaked with blood. Maybe it was his pounding heart. Maybe it was the sound of the Verrions dying as his sword took their life. Maybe it was the unspoken _please_ , the echo of a promise that couldn’t save others but here, with him…

Whatever it was, Keith couldn’t bring himself to argue.

He closed his eyes, bracing for the pain that he knew he could not avoid, and began to crawl forward.

And, hell, if walking was bad, then this was ten thousand times worse.

Keith couldn’t bite back his gasp of pain as his injured leg dragged behind him. Tears collected in his eyes, spilling unbidden down his cheeks with every small advance forward. Darkness threatened the edges of his vision as his knee, his toes, the entire leg, jostled against the ground. “Lance,” he breathed, but he couldn’t finish the sentence because the pain, the pain—

The scared part of him, that awful part of himself that lurked deep in his chest and made him feel so small, so _young_ begged for him to stop. It begged for him to give up because the pain _would never stop_ not after what had happened.

_You can’t run._

It said to him, he said to _himself._

He could feel his own blood, dripping from his chest onto his fingertips.

_Pain, pain, pain. Give up._

He couldn’t breath. The agony coursed through his blood, throbbing against his heart. He heard himself gasp, heard Lance curse. He _could not_ keep moving. Not through this. Not this pain—

_Paladin._

And then, for a fleeting second: warmth.

“Keith.”

Keith drew in a shuddering breath.

_So strong. So brave._

“Keith, listen to me. You can’t give up.”

Hand forward. Hand forward. Knee forward.

_Paladin, fight._

“We’re almost there.”

And there it was: a light at the end of the tunnel. Freedom.

_Red. Blue._

“Just a few more steps, Mullet.”

He reached the grate at the end of the shaft. Once, twice, his hand slammed against it, and it clattered away with little defiance. Sunlight spilled in.

_Safe._

“ _Fuck_ yeah.”

Keith pulled himself out of the vent, arms and legs shaking as he took in the world around him.

Metal, gleaming across the ground. A purple sky, strewn with wispy clouds. Lance, emerging from the vent as well, helping him up. Their shadows stretching across the ground. Shouting. A familiar gurgling hiss. A strange domed castle. A prison. The peppering of gunshots. A roar. Lance gasping in pain. His knees, both healthy and injured, slamming against the ground. Pain. Lance falling beside him, hands wet with blood. Warmth. Fire. Something swooping down from behind, closing around them. A familiar, comforting presence. The color red.

And then, darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Horray! An escape! I wonder if the actual recovery part of this recovery-centered fic will actually begin now? 
> 
> If you liked this chapter (or spotted any errors, oops!), please leave a kudos or a comment down below! What was your favorite part? What are your predictions for what will happen next? Let me know!
> 
> Also! I have a Tumblr now! It's lilacpessimism (idk how to add a link here)


	9. Drowning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An update! At last! I'm so sorry for the wait, but hopefully since school is now out for me updates should happen a little more often! 
> 
> TW in this chapter for vomiting.

The world was awash in blood.

Tri-toned scarlet painted his fingers, hugging the canvas of creases as he curled nails to palm. Uncurled. Watched a drop roll down his thumb, tracing the curve before falling, _plip_ , to the pool below.

_Plip._

Somewhere, someone began to scream.

Curl. Uncurl. He was fine. _Plip._ Fine. The blood was not his, not his, not his.

A chorus of voices, ravaged throats, calling his name. Shouting. _Pleading._

_Don’t leave. Don’t leave._

Curl. It was not his blood. Uncurl.

_Plip _.__

____

____

_Don’t let us die._

_Plip._ Curl. _Plip._ Uncurl.

_Please._

It was theirs.

 _Don’t, plip,_ curl. _Let us,_ uncurl. _Die, plip, plip._ Curl. Uncurl. Curl.

_Please._

And then, like an electricity overload, the screaming stopped. Shorted out.

His fingers froze mid-curl, knuckles taut in their gloves of blood. The drops stopped falling to the pool below.

Silence. The only noise in his blood-soaked world.

Deafening.

He breathed out, trying the shuddering rattle in the still air as a source of sound, regretting it almost immediately. It wavered, fragile as it escaped his lips, and his heart—his pounding heart, orchestra for one—threatened to smash it to pieces.

Something rolled down his cheek.

He blinked, wondering if he had imagined it because his eyes didn’t hurt, his chest—though thrumming with frantic heartbeat—didn’t ache, his throat didn’t clench. But then: a second, a third, a fourth—

Tears for the fallen?

He reached up, eyeing crimson hand bathed in now-dry blood, caked and peeling, as it neared his cheek. His fingers met something wet, something warm, smeared it down his cheek for a breath before pulling away to hover before his eyes.

Wet.

With blood.

His breath caught and he dropped his hand, following its motion down, down to the pool below where a face stared back at him. Broad smile. Dark hair. Tears of blood dripping from the place where an eye once was.

Where _his_ eye once was.

He watched, through his reflection in the pool of blood, as a hand rose, shaking, to touch the empty socket. Watched the fingers venture into the hole, blood running down them in rivulets. Watched the mouth part in a scream. Watched nails hit bone. Watched tears, real, drip down the other cheek.

_Plip._

But he didn’t feel anything.

***

Cold.

That was the first thing that Lance registered as the pod hissed open, icy cloud billowing around him as he pitched forward—unable to catch himself on still-numb legs. For a moment, a wave of panic swept through him as his body began to tilt, but before he could fall, a pair of warm arms wrapped around him.

“Easy, Lance. Easy. I’ve got you.” The arms tightened, and Lance sagged into them, thankful for the support as his body began to tremble in reaction to the cold temperatures of the pod. His breath hitched, and a small choked sob escaped his throat—a culmination of his trauma, fear, and the relief that he was home.

Safe.

A large hand rubbed his back, and Lance couldn’t help but produce a watery smile as he caught the familiar scent of cinnamon and cookies.

“Hunk?” he hiccuped, guilt crashing through him as he realized that the tears dripping down his cheeks were more than likely soaking through his best friend's shirt.

“I’ve got you,” Hunk repeated. A promise to both of them. “You’re safe.”

Safe. No more blood. No more pain. No more screams, no more prison, no more gunshots. No more crackle of the comms, no more emergency lights. No more Keith with a face etched with pain. No more bodies hitting the floor—

_No. Stop._

Lance buried his face in the Yellow Paladin’s chest, trying to block out the memories with the scent of cinnamon and baking. The hand on his back paused for a moment, as though unsure how to react, before settling back down to pull him closer.

“You’re okay. You’re back at the Castle. No one can hurt you.”

Safe.

He was safe. No longer in danger. Lance knew that he have felt relief at Hunk’s promise that no one could hurt him, and he _did_ , he trusted whatever Hunk said with his life, but something felt off. Something in the back of his mind—an aching heaviness that rang with the echo of gunshots...an insistent churning in his stomach. Lance knew that he was safe but he also knew that the escape hadn’t been an easy one. He knew that he had been disoriented and panicked after emerging from the vent, and if Hunk’s guarded voice and the feeling of _offness_ meant anything then…

“What about Keith?” He whispered.

“What about...sorry, bud, you’re going to have to speak up.”

“What about Keith?” Lance repeated, because, despite the reassurances that he had yet to hear Hunk mention Keith’s name. In their escape, Lance remembered that he, himself, had been shot, and he had passed out from the pain right as the Red Lion swept in behind him. Had Keith been injured too? Without Lance, he wouldn’t have been able to walk. Had he even made it out?

Hunk didn’t respond.

Lance’s heart skipped a beat, and he pulled back, blinking his eyes open for the first time since he had stepped out of the pod and oh, there weren’t two eyes, there was only one. Somehow, in the lasting delirium from the pod and his worry for Keith he’d forgotten—

_My eye is gone._

Lance blinked once. Twice. Checking. Double-checking. Trying to make sure that it wasn’t all some fevered dream that he needed to wake up from. How had he forgotten? He had been awake when they had taken it. How could he have forgotten that his entire eye was gone?

Bile rose in his throat.

In front of him, Hunk’s eyes widened, recognizing the signs of nausea all too well, and he swiftly pivoted Lance to the side seconds before he vomited on the floor.

“It’s okay,” the Yellow Paladin murmured as Lance coughed, gagging as his stomach churned and his eyes watered from the acrid scent. A warm hand returned to rest on his back, a comforting presence as he continued to retch, dispelling the meager contents of his stomach. Around him, the air grew sharp and sour, and he whimpered at the smell—the all too cruel reminder that, though he was home, was _safe_ , he would never be truly healed. No matter how long he spent in the pods.

No matter what Hunk said, no matter what _he_ said to himself, he wasn’t okay.

He glanced up at his friend, hoping to find ease in the familiar face, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t distract himself from the darkness encompassing one half of his vision. The lack of balance. The undeniable truth that something was missing. Lost.

He wasn’t okay.

“Don’t worry about it,” Hunk said, as though reading Lance’s thoughts. “You’re still healing.” He shook his head as Lance cracked his mouth open to protest. “No. Don’t argue with me. You’re not Keith. Why don’t we go to the kitchen? Get you some water and food—”

“Keith,” Lance repeated numbly, interrupting his friend as he hinged on the word. He glanced up to meet the Yellow Paladin’s gaze. “You didn’t answer earlier. Is he okay?”

“He,” Hunk started, but whatever facade he was attempting to keep began to crumble as his mouth twitched, as his eyes—truthful in golden sincerity—glanced at Lance’s missing own.

The Blue Paladin licked his lips, a nervous habit. “Hunk?”

Hunk shook his head, unable to hide the tears welling in his eyes, the wordless admittance.

“Is he…”

“He’s alive,” the Yellow Paladin responded, the statement both victory and consolation. “But it’s...yeah.” He nodded towards one of the healing pods behind Lance, and the Blue Paladin turned to find Keith suspended in the capsule. 

“How bad?” Lance asked, noting pain on Keith’s face, agony frozen in time—a crease between his eyebrows, downturned lips. He stared at the pod, apprehension fluttering in his chest because he already knew the answer. He had seen the bandages on his friend’s leg (now replaced with thick, white gauze), the blood, the stitches, the pain—

“Coran says he won’t be able to walk.”

Even though he had already suspected, Lance wasn’t prepared for the wave of despair, of _guilt_ , that crashed over him. Because, even though he had seen, even though he had heard Keith say it, he had held on to a small fraction of hope. In that cell, the naive part of him had hoped that Keith was wrong, that the wounds were superficial. The scared child inside of him had prayed that his friend would be okay, that the healing pods would fix everything.

But they weren’t okay.

“They ran a scan,” Hunk continued softly as Lance turned back to face him, “Shiro and Coran. Once they put him in the pod so they could see how bad the damage was. They...we...we all thought that it would be fixable, but then the scan popped up and…” he trailed off, gaze hardening with an anger that Lance had never seen in his best friend before, and when he spoke, his voice carried a heaviness that embedded itself in Lance’s heart.

“They removed his achilles tendon—we can’t heal it because it’s not even there. They _massacred_ his leg, Lance, it wasn’t just that. His knee is busted because they removed as many tendons and ligaments as they could find, damaged the cartilage too, and they destroyed the muscles in his calf. His leg physically can’t work.”

“Oh,” Lance replied, because there was nothing else he could say. There were no words that could make this situation better. None. He suddenly felt guilty for his reaction to his own injury. A missing eye was _nothing_ compared to what had happened to Keith. He could still see, could still walk, could probably still fight with a little adjustment, and he knew that prosthetic eyes were a thing (though he wasn’t sure how he felt about Sendak’s model). But Keith…

This time, Hunk didn’t have enough time to swivel him to the side before he puked. Lance gagged, tears brimming in his eye that were not entirely due to the smell, and his guilt deepened, replacing the contents of his stomach as he realized that he had vomited directly onto his best friend’s shoes.

“It’s okay,” Hunk said before he could apologize. His shoes squelched as he carefully maneuvered Lance away from the mess. “It’ll wash out.”

Lance frowned, and he knew that Hunk could read the despair on his face by the way his friend’s face crumpled. “Hunk, I—”

“Don’t apologize,” the Yellow Paladin said, his voice hoarse with anger (though, Lance knew, that anger was not for him). “Not to me.” And then, to Lance’s utmost horror, Hunk’s anger faded—as quick as an ember burning out—and he began to cry.

***

When Shiro found them an hour later, Hunk’s snores echoed through the infirmary, and dried tears tracked down Lance’s cheeks.

“Shh,” the Blue Paladin murmured as Shiro’s boots clicked across the floor. “He just fell asleep.”

The footsteps paused.

“He stayed up all night waiting for you to come out.”

Lance lifted his head from where it had been resting on Hunk’s chest and glanced up at the Black Paladin. “I know.” He frowned at their leader. “But it doesn’t look like you did much better.”

Shiro gave a small shake of his head, but the defiance did little to counteract the clear signs of fatigue plastered across his face. The bags under his eyes confirmed that many hours had passed since the last time he had rested, and the yawn that the Black Paladin tried to hide next drove the truth home. His hair—far from its typical grooming—had been pushed into disarray; the relentless combing of worried fingers through the white forelock leaving it frazzled and bedraggled.

“Shiro,” Lance whispered, because he noticed then that the older paladin’s eyes were red, and he knew that the color wasn’t due to lack of sleep.

“I’m fine, Lance,” he replied, but the glance he cast past the Blue Paladin’s shoulder suggested otherwise. “Just...just tired.”

“I’m not a kid, Shiro.”

The Black Paladin blinked, startled. “What?”

“I said I’m not a kid.” Lance’s throat burned, but he was tired, _so so tired_ , of crying—the dried tears on his cheeks were testament to that. “I know you aren’t fine.”

Shiro’s lips dipped into a frown, and he shook his head. “You don’t need to worry about me.”

“But you’re allowed to worry about us?”

As soon as he spoke, Lance wished that he could eat his words.

Shiro stared at him, eyes wide, the suggestion of tears glistening above his lower lashes. His Galra hand whirred as fingers curled, searching for something to hold onto, and his face—so often stoic and reserved—crumpled. Without warning, his shoulders slumped, and sank to the floor beside Lance.

_Did I got to far?_

“Shiro, I—” Lance started, but he broke off as the Black Paladin murmured something incomprehensible. He bit his lip and fell silent as his friend spoke again.

“You’re seventeen, Lance.”

_What?_

“You’re seventeen,” Shiro repeated, as though Lance had spoken out loud. “You’re seventeen, and so is Hunk. Keith just turned eighteen, Katie’s younger than all of you. I know it’s not my job, but I’m...” he paused here, confusion and the time lost to his year in captivity stealing his words. Lance could guess at the questions running through the Black Paladin’s brain as he tried to do the math. Was he 23? 24? With the year in captivity and their time in space, had he already reached 25? How much of his life had he lost?

“I’m...older,” Shiro said at last, voice cracking. “And maybe...maybe it’s not by much, but you _are_ all just kids. And you’re all strong, and brave, and smart as hell, but you’re far away from home and you’re tired,” he looked at Hunk, still asleep on the floor, “and hurting,” another glance beyond Lance, to Keith’s pod, “and scared,” he nodded to Lance. “And I feel like it’s my job to keep you safe because if it wasn’t for me, then none of you would be in this position.”

Oh.

_Oh._

“Shiro…”

“I’m allowed to worry,” the Black Paladin said at last, “because bad things happen in war, and we’re standing on the front lines.”

The unspoken weight of those words, carried in the glance to Lance’s face—the place where his eye wasn’t—and fear for the boy in the pod behind them, made the Blue Paladin nod.

“Okay.”

Shiro smiled—a tired smile—his face creasing with the weight of things that even he was too young to have to experience. “Thank you.”

“No problem,” Lance replied, cracking a smile of his own. “But you have to promise me something.”

“And what is that?

“Don’t blame yourself.”

Shiro bit his lip, glanced past Lance again, refusing to meet his gaze. “I can’t do that.”

Lance put a tentative hand on his leader’s shoulder, heart tightening as his friend flinched at the contact before leaning into it. “You have to.”

Shiro shook his head, and when he finally did glance away from Keith’s pod and look at Lance, the latter found that tears had begun to run down the Black Paladin’s face.

“Did Hunk tell you? About…”

_Keith._

“Yeah,” Lance nodded, and he hated the way his voice wavered. “Yeah he did. And it’s not your fault.”

Shiro’s mouth parted to argue, but Lance squeezed his shoulder tighter and shook his head forcefully. “It’s _not_ ,” he insisted. “You aren’t the one who hurt him. There was no way for you to have known that this was going to happen. It’s not your fault, and because of you we were able to escape. I don’t blame you for what happened, and I know that Keith doesn’t either, so don’t blame yourself.”

“I—”

“ _Don’t,_ ” Lance repeated forcefully. “It’s okay to be afraid, and it’s okay to be worried—just because you’re older than us doesn’t mean that you have to carry everything on your own—but you are not allowed to blame yourself. Okay?”

“Okay,” Shiro said softly, and Lance saw the gratitude in his eyes. “And Lance?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

Lance smiled, but before he could reply, a sharp _ping_ sounded behind them.

He glanced up, startled. “What was that?”

Shiro’s shoulder tensed beneath his grasp.

“Shiro?”

_Ping! Ping!_

Beside them, Hunk’s head shot up, his eyes still bleary with sleep.

“What’s happening?” Lance asked, heart hammering in his chest as Shiro ignored him, choosing instead to stand up and move towards the pods.

_Ping! Ping! Ping!_

_Are the pods supposed to make that sound?_

“Shiro?” he asked as a hiss and a cloud of cold air filled the room, but it was Hunk who answered him.

“It’s Keith,” his best friend said, his face warring between relief and concern. “He’s waking up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next: Keith wakes up...
> 
> If you liked this chapter (or spotted a spelling error, oops!), please leave a comment below! I love hearing from you!  
> Also, follow my tumblr: lilacpessimism to stay up-to-date with updates on both of my fics!


	10. Sinking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof, this chapter is a little late, so sorry about that! A couple of timeline notes, since season 6 just came out and I decided that this needed some clarification:
> 
> *S6 Spoilers*
> 
> This fic takes place around season 4 of the show. Keith is with the Blade, Lance flies Red, Allura flies Blue. HOWEVER the Shiro in this fic is NOT a clone, he has his own mind and is inside his own body :)
> 
> *End Spoilers*
> 
> One more thing for this chapter: TW for some somewhat vivid flashbacks of medical experimentation and mentions of blood.

“-th?”

_Pain._

“H...eith...up.”

_Agony, unlike anything he’d ever felt before. Sharp as nails and relentless as fire—all encompassing._

“...okay...Keith…”

_There was nothing he remembered except the pain._

“Open...eyes…”

_The fear._

“-eith...please…

“Shiro...he okay?”

_Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide._

“...him space…”

_Just pain._

“Keith?”

Keith’s eyes snapped open.

_And then he was back on the table, metal ceiling glinting overhead. Tentacles dug into his chest as blood—hot and slick—welled up from the incisions, the scent of iron bringing tears to his eyes—_

“Hey, hey, calm down,” a face appeared above him, the sight of familiar brown eyes severing the memory.

“Shiro?” Keith winced at the sound of his own voice. Was he slurring?

“Yeah, it’s me.”

Keith blinked, trying to focus as the image above him began to blur.

_Above? Why am I lying down?_

With no small effort, he tried to haul himself into a sitting position, but Shiro’s hand—the flesh one—pressed against his chest before he could rise more than a few inches.

“Careful, you just got out of the pods.”

Healing pods. Right. His leg, his chest…

He remembered the blood. The pain. The fear.

But then...healing pods were vertical, weren't they? Not horizontal. So why was Shiro’s face _above_ him? Had he fallen on the way out of the pod? He knew that he had been injured badly, but the pods were supposed to fix that...weren’t they?

Something small and warm sputtered in his chest, flickering as though it were about to blow out.

_The pods were supposed to fix things…_

“Shiro?”

His voice, so small and scared, reminded him of the hospital when he was ten years old, where his question of “Dad?” had echoed through an empty, sterile room while the doctors looked on, too scared to tell the little boy with a broken leg that he had no one left in the world. He had been met with silence then, eight years ago, until his second request of “Dad?” had sent a nursing assistant into tears and the head doctor had been forced to break the news. In the wake of that revelation, his ears had buzzed with static—the sound of nothing—a numbing wave to mask the words that he was far too young to hear, washing over him like a dream, a truth that he did not fully comprehend until almost a day later. At the time, his ignorance had sent tears cascading down his cheeks upon the full understanding of his father’s death. Today, he wished that he was still young enough to be naive. 

But today there was no silence.

“The pods couldn’t fix it.”

It.

It. Like Asparagus, when the ratty toy hippo had been thrown in the trash by one of his foster mothers. It. Like his father’s death, which everyone always questioned when they learned he was an orphan. It. Like his knife, the knife he wasn’t supposed to show. It. Like he had been called so many times before by foster parents who couldn’t care less about what happened to him, who didn’t care if he got hurt.

Broken things always became _it_.

The warm, flickering thing in his chest—and Keith recognized it now, knew that it was hope—sputtered out. “I…” he said, but he couldn’t finish the sentence because he knew that he would start crying, and he couldn’t let Shiro see him cry, had never let _anyone_ see him cry.

He swallowed, wincing as he forced down the lump in his throat. When he spoke again, it was all he could do not to choke on the words. “But the pods fix things...fix everything. Just put me back in, I know it might take more time, but I don’t mind losing a few weeks. Just because the time ran out doesn’t mean it can’t do more…” he trailed off as he realized that the Black Paladin refused to meet his gaze.

Oh, how he wished that he were still young enough to be naive. How he wished that he could blink—once, twice—and everything would fix itself.

“Shiro,” he tried again, but there was no bite to the word, only a wavering chord of fear. “Shiro, put me back in.”

_Please._

“Keith—”

“Put me back in the pod.”

_Please. This can still be fixed. I know it can. We’re not on Earth anymore, we have magic, better technology. Please, put me back in—_

“I can’t.”

He couldn’t.

And...and…

And Keith _knew_ that. Somewhere buried deep beneath his fear, his attempt at hope, he knew that there was no going back to the pods. He had always known. He had known the moment he had woken up alone in that cell with bandages wrapped around his leg and agony sparking at ever move. He had _known._

So why did the realization hurt so much?

“The pod let you out early,” Shiro whispered, “before the timer. Not because there was a malfunction or a problem but because there was nothing else for it to fix. There was nothing else it could do.”

“So,” Keith replied, understanding now where he was (a cot in the medbay) and why (because he had been released before his body was ready to wake up). “So then I…”

He trailed off again. His tongue, ever the traitor, turned heavy to lead in his mouth, and he wished (not for the first time) that he lacked the same filter as Lance. That he could say whatever he was thinking no matter the situation or fear of consequences. He _needed_ to say it. He needed to know that this was real and not another nightmare.

“You won’t be able to walk,” Shiro finished, cementing the truth. “I can tell you the details later, but right now you need time to rest.”

_You won’t be able to walk._

“No,” Keith said, because he had to know. Had lived enough of his life without knowing. “Tell me now.”

“Later,” Shiro tried to argue, “when you’re ready.”

“I’m ready _now_.” 

“No, you need time—”

“I had enough time in that cell.”

“Keith, you know that’s not what I—”

A new voice broke in before Keith could, softer than he had ever heard it before. “Shiro.”

_We both got out._

Keith didn’t know what to feel as the realization hit him. Relief because his friend was safe? Guilt because he had been too concerned about himself to even _ask_ about the Blue Paladin? Anger because he was the reason Lance was now missing an eye? Hope? Despair? Joy?

“He deserves to know too.”

“I…” Shiro said, jaw opening and closing in search for words that weren’t there. He shook his head, glanced up to a spot where Keith couldn’t see but assumed Lance must be standing, eyes searching desperately as he choked out a soft, whispered admission: “I can’t.” 

Sometimes, Keith forgot that Shiro had been sucked into this war just like the rest of them.

“I know,” Lance replied, “but I can.”

And maybe it was because Shiro was tired, his eyes shadowed with dark crescents of fatigue. Maybe it was because of Lance’s face, which dipped into view as Shiro sighed, single eye red with the trace of tears. Maybe it was because of the cot, or the leg that Keith knew was not lying properly under the sheets, and maybe it was something else entirely.

But whatever it was, Shiro nodded, shifting aside to make more space for the Blue Paladin.

And Lance told him everything.

Keith clung to every word, emotions warring inside of him as he tried to make sense of his new reality. Rage, fear, grief, and confusion fought for control as Lance laid out the details of his injury, sending his stomach churning and fading away only when the Blue Paladin paused and glanced away as though to hide the tears brimming in his eye.

“I should have been faster,” his friend whispered at the end. “I’m sorry.”

_I’m sorry._

And then…then Keith didn’t feel anything. Not hope. Not grief. Not a flicker of anger, a wave of relief. Not even the faint prodding of guilt. Nothing. Nothing but a numb sense of helplessness as his own walls crumbled and he began to cry as well. Tears rolled down the sides of his cheeks, his ears, tickling the back of his neck as they dripped beneath his hair, but he couldn’t bring himself to lift his head, couldn’t bring himself to do anything but cry.

He thought that he was prepared. He thought that after everything—the days in the cell, the bandages, the pain, the blood, the hobbling escape, the vent—that he knew how to deal with this. That he _could_ deal with this. That he was ready to accept what had happened, ready to try to live with it. Ready to keep moving forward.

But he wasn’t.

He wasn’t prepared.

He wasn’t anywhere close.

For the first time in his life, Keith was scared.

This was worse than all of the times he had broken his leg. Worse than his foster homes. Worse than being kicked out of the Garrison. Worse, even, than his father dying.

Because at least then, all of those times before, he had known what to do.

With broken legs, there had been hospital visits, strict rules, and a schedule, the promise of healing. The foster homes had his social worker, a predictable cycle, the promised freedom of turning eighteen. Being kicked out of the Garrison had the desert, the blue lion, Kerberos, a burning need to search. His father’s death had half-hearted condolences, paperwork, the details of a house fading as he drove away, a new routine.

But now?

Now, there was nothing that he could do. No procedure to follow, no rules.

Only the truth.

_Something sharp slicing into his ankle. Blood in his mouth—he’d bitten his tongue. The smell of iron. Something wet coiling around his knee. Metallic ceiling. The smell of iron. Tentacles burrowing in his stomach. The smell of iron. Fingers unable to move. Indescribable pain. The smell of iron. Blurring vision—_

“There are options,” a third voice said, but Keith didn’t want to hear them. Not now. Not when he was like this, when he couldn’t think straight.

_“Is this your heart?” Something wet, prodding against his ribs. A knife slicing into his stomach. Eyes drifting closed. Blood. Bile rising in his throat. The smell of iron. Pain. Blood. Unable to scream. Blood. Iron. Pounding heart. Iron. Pain. Blood—_

Keith closed his eyes before Hunk could continue, turning his face away from Lance and Shiro’s stares and burying it in his arm.

_One blink. Blood. Metallic ceiling. Skin pulling away from his chest. Iron staining the air. Pain—_

“Oh,” Hunk said, as though Keith’s actions were typical for his temperament. “Shit,” he continued, as though the word was typical for his vocabulary. “I forgot about how overwhelmed you might be. Lance was pretty out of it too—”

“Was not.”

“Yes, you were, Lance. Don’t argue with me. What happened to you two wasn’t pretty.” Hunk’s voice softened. “It’s okay to not be ready yet.” He paused, and Keith knew that he was glancing at Lance, sharing a silent message with his best friend—the type that Keith couldn’t understand because he always pushed people away before they could become that close.

“Let’s talk in the morning, okay?” The Yellow Paladin offered. “After breakfast. I think we all need some sleep—” a drawling yawn interrupted the comment.

“Good idea, Hunk,” Shiro said, speaking before Keith could assemble a clear thought. “Will you…” He trailed off: another unspoken conversation.

“Yeah,” Hunk murmured, “Yeah. C’mon, Lance.”

The Blue Paladin yawned, fighting for coherency as he spoke. “Mm not tired. Besides, Keith needs—”

“Lance,” Shiro interrupted, sharp but firm. A pause filled the air for another long moment.

“Oh,” Lance mumbled, hushed in a way that led Keith to assume that he had not meant to speak out loud.

A pair of bodies shifted beside the cot.

“We’ll see you in the morning, Shiro,” Hunk said. “Lance, stay close, your depth perception…” his voice trailed off as the pair left the room, fading to a indecipherable murmur as they retreated down the hallway, save for a faint bout of cotton-mouthed curses when Lance walked into a wall as they turned their first corner.

“Well,” Shiro said when Hunk’s whispering and Lance’s yelping finally dissipated into silence. “What do you want to do?”

Keith frowned, shifting his tear-stained face away from his arm to look up at the Black Paladin. “What are my choices?” God, even to his own ears he sounded young, afraid—voice cracking on the final word.

A sad smile crept across Shiro’s face. “You need to sleep. The pods aren’t the same as the real thing. Do you want to stay here? Go to your room? Go to…”

“My room is fine,” Keith said, a smile of his own tickling his lips at the thought of his own bed, warm blankets. “But I can’t—”

“Don’t worry about that. Not until morning.”

“But—”

A warm hand squeezed his shoulder. “Not tonight, Keith.” A request. A plea. A promise.

Keith nodded.

_Not tonight._

“I’m going to pick you up,” Shiro continued. “Let me know if anything hurts.”

Keith nodded again, forcing himself not to flinch as one arm curled around his torso and the other around his knees. Shiro lifted him up with ease (despite the muscle, Keith was still too small, too lean, to be a burden to the taller paladin), careful not to jostle Keith’s bad leg as he stepped away from the cot.

“Okay?” He asked as he straightened and readjusted Keith’s weight.

“Yeah,” Keith replied as he shifted in the Black Paladin’s arms. Shiro’s hold was firm but gentle. Cautious around his leg, even though the pain was gone. Mindful not only of the phantom injury, but of the trauma associated with it. He didn’t squeeze too tight, or too hard, but there _was_ something else that sent a shiver of unease down Keith’s spine.

_That’s weird. He was careful with my leg._

“Can you put less pressure on my side?”

“What?” Shiro blinked, flexed the fingers of his prosthetic. “Yeah, sorry. Sometimes I forget about how strong my arm is. Was I crushing you ribs?”

_Blood pooling beneath his body. A blade slicing against his ribs. Tentacles forcing their way inside him, prodding against his organs, pulling away coated in red. The sickening stench of iron—_

“No,” Keith said slowly, feeling the frown pull at his lips. “It’s because of the…” he trailed off as he caught Shiro’s eyes, which were narrowed in confusion. His heart thundered in his chest. 

“Shiro...did you see my pod chart?”

The Black Paladin frowned. “I saw the scan for your leg. Coran was the one who put you in the pod. Why...Is there something else?” 

Keith stared at him mouth dry.

_Does he not know?_

Shiro’s eyes widened. “Keith...did you get shot there? Is that...is your side still sensitive because of that?”

_Blood. Iron. Metallic ceiling. Tentacles. Pain._

_He doesn’t know._

Keith blinked. Once. Twice. “I…”

_He doesn’t know._

“Keith?”

Keith could feel tears welling in his eyes, a culmination of shock and fear and pain and trauma. Shock that the Black Paladin, their _leader_ , didn’t know the full extent of what had happened. Fear, residual from his experience, rising again with every flash of memory. Pain, from the memories, the scars that he knew now criss-crossed his torso. Trauma. Trauma that he couldn’t share. Not with Shiro. Shiro, who had been experimented on himself. Who still had nightmares. Still had flashbacks. Who would be _broken_ if he knew that one of the younger paladins, especially one as close to him as Keith, had been cut apart, poked, and prodded. He couldn’t know. Keith couldn’t tell him.

“Keith?”

“Yeah,” Keith replied, “Sorry, yeah. Shot. Still a little tender.”

Shiro shifted his arm. “Better?”

Keith nodded, relief flooding through him. “Much.” A small yawn cracked at the end of the word.

_He can’t know._

“Anything else?”

“Not tonight,” Keith mumbled, the weight of sleep tugging at his eyelids.

_Not tonight._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shiro doesn't know, but does anyone else? Hmmm...I guess we'll have to wait and see! 
> 
> Next up: Breakfast, a conversation about future options, and the re-appearance of Pidge!
> 
> (And, for anyone who's wondering, a Shiro chapter is coming up soon! It will likely be after the next Keith chapter, but I'm not 100% sure yet)
> 
> Thank you to everyone who's left a kudos or a comment so far! It really means a lot to me, and I'm so happy that you like the story! If you enjoyed this chapter, please leave a comment below telling me your favorite part or what you think might happen next! (Or if you spot any errors, I don't have a beta, so sometimes I accidentally have typos or continuity issues)
> 
> Also, I have a tumblr! Follow me @lilacpessimism if you want to chat more about my fics and get updates for new chapters!


	11. The Deep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your patience! I really appreciate it and I hope you enjoy this chapter! I just started college so I apologize for how long this took for me to write, but I'm glad that all of you are so kind and supportive♥
> 
> (Disclaimer: I have 0 medical knowledge so I took my best guesses)

His face burned.

Burned. Like the sun at the peak of summer.

Burned. Like the strike and the spark and the match.

Burned. Like the smoke clotted with embers and ash.

Burned. Like the chest ache from too much nothing.

Burned. White and red and roaring. Hot and blistering.

It burned and it burned and it burned.

Pain raced down his cheek, numbing it to the sensation of life. He reached his hand up to brush it away but there was nothing there ( _nothing there_ ) and his fingers groped at empty space. His bones, his skin, his blood throbbed at the recognition of his failure.

There was nothing he could do.

Nothing he could do to bring back what he had lost. Nothing he could do to ease the pain. Nothing he could do to stop the burning, the tears forming, the pounding in his skull.

Nothing.

So Lance tilted his head back and screamed.

He screamed until his voice grew hoarse. Until his throat ached and he could not breathe. He screamed until he could not feel the tears, his fingers, anything other than the pain. He screamed until he knew nothing else, only agony, only fear. Until he could no longer take it. Not anymore.

But there was nothing else.

Only pain.

_Paladin._

And fire, racing across his face. Burning. Burning.

_Paladin._

Something awful and dark and empty coiling in his chest.

_Paladin. Safe._

And…a bloom of warmth in his fingertips.

_Safe. No pain._

Warmth, climbing up his arms, dipping into his chest, reaching up his neck.

_Safe. Safe. Quiet._

Warmth. Like his mother’s hugs.

_No pain. Paladin._

Warmth. Like his best friend’s laugh.

_Safe. No more._

Warmth. Like cookies cooling on the counter.

_Safe._

Warmth. Like the beat of a hopeful heart.

_Protect. Safe._

The burning faded as the warmth enveloped him. A hint of pain still throbbed at his cheek, but the mind numbing agony was gone, the emptiness was gone.

_Safe now. Sleep._

Around him, a gentle rumbling began to fill the air, a calming white noise that washed away the lingering traces of his screams.

_Sleep_ , the Red Lion urged him.

And he did.

***

Hunk insisted that they talk about recovery options over breakfast.

“Everything's better when there are waffles,” the Yellow Paladin insisted when Lance asked why they weren’t holding the discussion in the Med Bay. “ _Everything_.”

But Lance knew it wasn’t about the waffles.

“There are pancakes too,” Hunk added as Lance chose a seat at the table, “and this green stuff that kinda tastes like scrambled eggs.”

Lance eyed the imposter eggs wearily as his friend placed a few more dishes on the table. He wasn’t positive, but he thought for a split second that he saw them move. “The eggs, uh, look great, buddy. But I’ll stick to the waffles.”

Hunk frowned. “Are you sure? I know they look a little weird but—”

“You made _waffles_!?”

The enthused exclamation snapped Lance’s attention away from the eggs, and he couldn’t help but smile as a third Paladin entered the room, her eyes bright with excitement.

“And pancakes,” Hunk replied with a grin, the true weight of the breakfast’s purpose lost as Pidge darted to the table, hand snaking out to steal a waffle from one of the steaming plates.

She never even got close.

“Oh no you don’t!” The Yellow Paladin roared, sweeping her off the ground before she could grab the food. She yelped as she was lifted into the air, arms flailing as she tried desperately to reach the waffles.

“Hunk!” she protested, but the whine came off as more of a giggle, and it was hard for either of the boys to take her seriously as her feet kicked in the air. “Lance?”

Lance shook his head. “Oh no, Pidgeon, you’re on your own. No one messes with Hunk’s kitchen.”

Hunk twisted as Pidge tried to make another grab for the waffles and raised an eyebrow at his best friend. “No one? Really?”

“Taste tester isn’t the same thing. It’s an official role.”

“Sure it is,” Pidge replied, scowling as she realized that her short arms weren’t long enough to reach the table. “Huuunk.”

“Nope,” the Yellow Paladin replied. “Not until everyone is here.”

She slumped into his arms, defeated. “Ugh, fine.”

Lance couldn’t help but be reminded of his little cousins are her childish behavior, and a small smile tickled the edge of his lips.

Luckily, the Green Paladin didn’t have long to wait. Hunk set her down next to Lance after several promises that she _would not, under any circumstances, touch the waffles_ , before turning away to grab more food. A few moments after that, a fourth Paladin entered the room.

“What a fantastic smell!” Allura said brightly, though her smile didn’t reach her eyes, and Lance couldn’t help but notice the way her face fell for the briefest moment as she glanced in his direction. “Did you cook it all yourself, Hunk?”

“It was nothing, Allura, really. Take a seat, we’re just waiting on Shiro and Keith. It should just be a —Pidge!” The Green Paladin yanked her hand back into her lap, shaking her head innocently under the Yellow Paladin’s glare. “Just a moment,” he finished with a sigh.

The princess smiled again, a real smile this time, before sitting down across from Lance. “Is she always like this?”

Lance laughed. “With Hunk’s waffles? It’s hard not to be.” Even _he_ was struggling with self-restraint, and his stomach was still tight from his restless night of sleep.

Allura considered the plates before her. “What is a, how did you say it, a waff-ul?” 

“The best food ever,” Pidge replied as Lance opened his mouth to give her a real explanation. However, before he could do so, the last two paladins entered the room.

They looked...tired. It was the only word Lance could think of as Shiro walked into the room, arm slung around Keith’s waist as the younger Paladin leaned heavily on him. Both sported wildly disheveled hair and bags underneath their eyes that were a haunting far worse than fatigue. Keith was still in pajamas, something that curdled Lance’s stomach more than the emptiness in the Red Paladin’s eyes and the unhealthy pallor of his skin, because Keith didn’t _wear_ pajamas. He slept in his clothes, always, so that he would be ready if something ever happened. But now, after what had happened...Lance couldn’t even bring himself to finish the thought. 

“Breakfast,” Shiro said warmly as they made their way towards the table, though, like Allura, the smile didn’t fully reach his eyes. “You could have started without us.”

“Never,” Hunk replied.

Pidge scrunched up her nose. “Debatable.”

Hunk rolled his eyes and added the last few dishes to the table, emptying his hands so that he could pull out a chair for Keith.

The Red Paladin’s cheeks flushed pink at the gesture, but he nodded at Hunk gratefully. Lance felt his stomach coil tighter as Shiro helped him into the seat, an awkward maneuver that took an uncomfortable stretch of silence to complete. Keith’s eyebrows drew together in pain as his bad leg jarred against the ground, and Lance couldn’t help but wince in sympathy as his friend’s face crumpled.

“Are you—” Hunk started, but Keith cut him off with a sharp shake of his head.

“I’m fine.” _Lance knew he wasn’t._ “Can we just…”

“Uh, yeah, breakfast. Breakfast is, yeah,” Hunk agreed, casting one last concerned look in Keith’s direction before turning back to the rest of the paladins. “Dig in everyone!”

The table exploded into a flurry of movement.

Pidge grabbed for the waffles with a battle-cry, piling three on her plate before anyone else had even managed to decide what they wanted. Shiro reached hesitantly for the eggs, oblivious to the way they moved across the plate. Hunk answered Allura’s questions, pointing out his favorite dishes and insisting that she try a waffle. Lance tried his best to fit everything on his plate, ignoring Pidge’s cries of dismay as he was forced to stack other foods on top of his waffle in order to get everything to fit. Even Keith reached for the pancakes with a smile on his face. 

For a moment, Lance could almost pretend that everything was normal.

But then he misjudged the distance to his mouth when he went to take a sip of juice, spilling it down the front of his shirt, and the laughter and smiles died.

“Oh, Lance,” Hunk said softly as he realized what happened, standing as he spoke to grab some napkins.

He had spilled.

“Shit,” Pidge murmured softly, waffles instantly forgotten.

He had _spilled._

Because everything wasn’t okay. Because it wasn’t normal.

It wasn’t.

Because his eye was missing and no matter what he did he would never forget that.

Despite himself, Lance could feel the tears beginning to well up. 

Shiro’s eyes widened. “Woah, hey, bud, you’re okay. It’s okay.”

But he wasn’t. He _wasn’t_.

He glanced up at Shiro, and as he did so the tears began to flow, dripping down his cheek despite his desperate attempts to blink them away.

“I spilled,” he said then, and he hated how his voice cracked. Hated the shame in those two words.

The Black Paladin looked back at him, his eyes glimmering with the suggestion of his own tears.

“Adjustment is hard,” he said softly, curling his right fist and letting the fingers unfurl one by one. “And that’s okay. It’s...you’re okay.”

It sounded as much a promise to himself as it was to Lance.

“We’re here for you,” Pidge agreed, reaching out to curl her small hand around his.

“ _Both_ of you,” Allura amended.

A warm hand squeezed Lance’s shoulder. “It’s okay,” Hunk repeated as he held out a towel. “Things’ll get better. _We’ll_ make it better.”

“Speaking of…” Pidge interjected, cheeks tinted pink at the blunt redirection, “I’ve been brainstorming some options with Hunk and Coran.”

Though the tears were still fresh on his cheek, Lance couldn’t help but perk up at her words. Across the table, he saw Keith do the same.

“There are a couple,” she continued, “for both of you. Some are better than others but I wanted to let you guys choose because you didn’t, um, choose...you know...”

_Choose this._

“Thanks, Pidge,” Keith said softly, his gratitude clear in the soft smile he offered her.

She smiled back at him. “Who wants to start?”

“I’ll go first,” Lance offered, placing his juice-sodden towel on the table. “What’ve you got?”

“Three options.” Pidge held up the appropriate number of fingers. “Easiest is doing nothing, maybe finding an eyepatch, doing some physical therapy. Quicker recovery time, but less cosmetically appealing or functional in the long run.” She adjusted her glasses, pausing so Lance could add his input.

The Blue Paladin felt his stomach tighten. He hadn’t even _considered_ the cosmetic component of his situation. Every mirror in the bathroom had been avoided and he had slept through much of the last few days. It was a silly aspect of his injury to worry about, and he _knew_ that it wasn’t a big problem, but he had always been proud of his face and…

“What else?” he asked.

“Second option,” Hunk said, picking up where Pidge had left off, “glass eye. Purely a cosmetic option. It wouldn’t be functional optically, but we could probably find a pretty good replicator and it would look mostly normal with minimal amounts of scarring. Recovery would probably take a little bit longer, and you would still need physical therapy”

Lance nodded, already much fonder of this option than the former. It solved the problem that the earlier one posed, though there was still one thing that he was concerned about, and he didn’t want to say it out loud.

“Third,” Pidge continued, “is a prosthetic.”

Lance felt the breath leave his lungs.

“It might take us a little while to make,” she admitted, “And there might be a few duds before we get one that works, but Coran said that the surgery those aliens performed was clean enough that we should be able to replace it with an eye that has actual optical capabilities. It’ll definitely take longer, and the recovery will be harder, but if you want it, well...you’re our sharpshooter, right?”

_Our sharpshooter._

Lance didn’t know whether he should laugh or cry, couldn’t control the wave of emotion that crashed over him. He surged out of his seat, wrapping Pidge up in the biggest hug he could manage, holding her close as tears streamed down his cheek and he whispered _thank you_ over and over into her ear.

_Our sharpshooter._

He knew that it was a stupid fear, worse than the vanity about his appearance. He knew that his team would still love him no matter what, that being the sharpshooter wasn’t his only role on the team. That he was still valuable. That he would _always_ be valuable. But knowing that the role would still be his, that his friends would support him and help to get him there?

“Thank you,” he whispered into Pidge’s hair. “Thank you.”

She squeezed him back, and the way she curled her fingers into his shirt was the only response he needed.

They held each other for a long moment, both unwilling to let go, before breaking apart as Hunk coughed and they turned their attention to Keith.

“Three options for you too,” Hunk started, “The first is similar to Lance’s first option. We can leave your leg as it is. Do some physical therapy, get you some nice crutches. It’s fast and easy, but it’ll come with limited mobility...” He trailed off as Keith’s face paled.

“I…” the Red Paladin said, shaking his head. “What else?”

“Wheelchair,” Pidge replied, peeling away from Lance. “Not a typical one, but _really_ high-tech and nice. We can make it compatible with your lion so you can fly. It would take a little longer to acquire than the crutches, but your mobility would be better and it would probably only require as much therapy as the crutches.”

Keith shook his head again. Lance could see the tension in his shoulders, the clench of his jaw, the fear in his eyes.

“Last is a brace,” Hunk said softly, a frown tugging at his lips as Keith’s face, for a second so quick that Lance almost missed it, crumpled. “It would take a little while to make, but probably not too long. We can make it light and easy to use, it probably wouldn’t be ideal for fighting or running, but you would be able to walk, maybe jog. It would support your leg in all of the places where the muscles and tendons can’t do so themselves. We could also fit one into the leg of your paladin armor. Again, not ideal for running or fighting, but your armor should provide support too so you could still go on missions. Physical therapy would be similar to the other options,” he paused, raising his eyebrows at the Red Paladin hopefully.

It took Keith a long moment to respond.

“Thanks, Hunk,” he said at last, but the gratitude sounded forced and his disappointment clear. He tried to smile, but a glance at Shiro, or, rather, Shiro’s _arm_ , betrayed his true sentiments.

“We can’t,” Hunk said before Keith could ask. “I...we…” he paled.

Lance reached up and squeezed his friend’s hand. 

“We don’t have the medical know-how to amputate your leg,” Pidge murmured, glancing away from the Red Paladin. “We could do it crudely, but even with the pods it would likely cause trauma to your mind and body. On top of that, we don’t have the technological capabilities to make a leg. An eye is small and we have an idea of how to go about it from the time we had Sendak, but a leg is big and complicated…”

“It would take time,” Hunk continued. His hand tightened around Lance’s. “A _lot_ of time. We don’t have the abilities that Haggar had with Shiro. We don’t even really know how to start. We might be able to get some ideas from Shiro’s arm and Coran’s database, but even with that we might not get anywhere. We can, _will_ , try but right now it isn’t the best option, not when we might not even be able to get there and there’s a possibility we could make things worse. I,” his voice choked and the grip on Lance’s hand began to cut off circulation. “I’m sorry, Keith.”

As Lance watched the dismay wash across Keith’s face, sending splintering cracks through the mask that he had tried so valiantly to keep in place, he found that he finally understood what Shiro had been trying to tell him the other night.

_“You’re all just kids.”_

Earlier, Lance had wanted to protest the Black Paladin’s point. He had wanted to argue that they were the defenders of the universe, that they were _paladins_ , that war did not take children, but heroes. He had wanted to look strong, mature, capable. He had wanted to prove that they could do this.

But now, Lance could only face the truth.

_Just kids._

They were kids. Young, hopeful, stupid. They were defenders, yes, paladins, yes, but they were also far away from home and nearly alone. War made heroes, but it also made scared children, ones who couldn’t close their eyes at night for fear of nightmares. Who were chewed up and spit out and only sometimes stood up again. They were not the strongest, not the wisest, could not do everything. He was only seventeen. Hunk was the same age as him, Pidge even younger. They didn’t have the skills with technology that a recognized engineer would have. They were smart, yes, and well above their age-level when it came to what they had accomplished, but they were still learning, they didn’t know everything yet. 

And Keith…

Lance watched as his friend looked down at his plate, tines of his fork scraping against the dish as he mashed up his food, appetite clearly gone. Tears glimmered in the older paladin’s eyes, anger built in the set of his jaw, fear in his shoulders.

Keith was a kid too. Even though he’d been forced to grow up faster than the rest of them, he was still young. He acted as though he had everything under control, as though he needed nobody, but Lance knew that it wasn’t true. Keith was lonely and he was _scared_ , just like the rest of them, even if the Red Paladin refused to admit it. He didn’t deserve to be. Was far too young to be this closed off, this angry, this broken, but he was and it wasn’t fair.

It wasn’t fair.

Lance had wanted to prove that they could do this.

But now he wasn’t so sure that they could.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've always had a difficult time in fics with how quickly Hunk+Pidge are able to build a prosthetic when someone loses a limb. I've always felt like it's a process that takes time and that they, because of how young they are, shouldn't necessarily know how to do that (it's not really something you would learn at the Garrison...) Because of that, I decided to take a different route with Keith. It's likely not the path that many of you expected, but an injury like the one he received is not one that can be fixed overnight, and his recovery is going to be a process. It's not going to be easy for him, but I'm excited for where the story is going to go, and I hope you all are too!
> 
> Also, sorry about the lack of Alteans in this chapter. I promise, they have some larger roles coming up soon!
> 
> Additionally, if you liked this chapter, please leave a comment below! I love reading your thoughts and theories!
> 
> Finally, if you'd like to keep up-to-date with fic updates (or if you'd just like to chat with me) you can follow me @lilacpessimism on tumblr!
> 
> Up Next! Keith struggles with his new reality and gets help from an unlikely place...


	12. Floating

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! I'm sorry this chapter took so long. I've been super busy and unfortunately haven't had much time for writing. I thank you all for your patience and your support.
> 
> I really enjoyed writing this chapter, and I hope you will enjoy reading it.
> 
> Please pay careful regards to the following warnings: descriptions of pain, insomnia, description of graphic medical procedures

Keith couldn’t sleep.

Everyone else in the Castle had retired hours ago, after a long day of emotional exhaustion following that morning’s breakfast. Once the truth had been revealed, the rest of the day had passed in a blur. Following the breakfast conversation, Coran had insisted on another medical evaluation for both of the injured paladins in order to “insure the quickest path to recovery!” That alone had been long and frustrating, leaving Keith in a bad mood for the rest of the day.

At lunch, Lance had surprised everyone with an unexpected emotional outburst—one moment, he had been eating a sandwich Hunk had made, the next he broke into inconsolable tears and heavy sobs. It had only taken one look from the Yellow Paladin for everyone else to clear out of the room. Shiro had helped Keith up, and the awkward process had only increased the latter’s frustration, leading to another return to the infirmary to equip him with a pair of crutches.

By the time dinner rolled around, his arms ached in tandem with his leg, shortening the fuse on his already burning temper. Dinner had been quick and solemn—Lance didn’t show and Pidge spent the whole meal casting furtive glances in Keith’s direction. When Shiro offered to help Keith with his crutches at the end of the meal, his temper finally flared, leading to a hoarse shouting match and an order for everyone to “leave him the fuck alone.” Upon retreating to his room, he immediately regretted those words, but he couldn’t bring himself to go outside and apologize. Instead, he surrendered himself to a hasty and unsatisfactory shower before changing into a set of loose pajamas and hauling himself into bed.

For hours, he tossed and turned. He heard doors slide shut as the other paladins followed his lead. Ignored the knock on his own that likely came from Shiro. He stared at the ceiling as the hours ticked past. Another. And another. And another. Listened as the Castle fell asleep, immune to the insomnia plaguing him. Sweat stuck his hair to the back of his neck. A dry ache itched at his eyes. Blankets twisted around his legs. His chest ached with phantom pain.

Memories—bloody, painful, iron-scented—tried to flood his mind. Their incessant pressure grew every second, every moment he tried to close his eyes, every breath he took. The return to that table grew sharper with every twist of the blankets. The paralyzation clawed at his toes, his fingers, his throat

He shifted, trying to free himself, but his bad leg refused to move. Try as he might, it wouldn’t bend. The muscles in his calf twitched as he tried to coax its compliance. His knee ached as it pressed into the mattress, and his toes wiggled helplessly as his ankle pulsed with its own spurt of pain.

His throat burned as he tried to force down a sob of frustration.

This should have been _easy_. Easier than running. Easier than walking. _Easy._ Even children could kick their blankets off without a second thought. Detangling himself should have only taken moments—a careful twist and kick of each leg. He shouldn’t have even needed to think about it. Instead, he was trapped on his own bed. Stuck, like he was back on that table with those aliens leaning over him.

Tears pricked at his eyes, but he tried to blink them away. Embarrassed. Ashamed. Afraid. For a moment, he contemplated trying to send a message to Shiro or maybe Coran, but he quickly shoved the thought away. He couldn’t disturb their nights because he had gotten tangled in some blankets. Between himself and Lance, they already had enough to deal with. Shiro hadn’t slept at all over the past few days; it wasn’t fair to wake him. Besides, he didn’t want anyone to see him like this. Vulnerable. Frustrated. Upset.

_Helpless._

Keith flinched as the word entered his mind. _Helpless._ Weak. Reliant on others to stand. To walk. To escape from the mess he had gotten himself into. Broken. Stitched back together with jagged scars and the biting needle of memory. He couldn’t fight. Couldn’t even bring himself to close his eyes and fall asleep.

He couldn’t return to the Blade.

Couldn’t be a paladin.

Couldn’t do _anything_.

_Helpless._

A tear slipped down his cheek, and there was nothing he could bring himself to do to stop it. Another followed, and then a third. His chest ached with a need to scream, but he didn’t want to wake the other paladins (especially Shiro and Lance, with whom he shared walls). He couldn’t wake them.

He shifted to his side, attempting to curl his legs to his chest, and only spurring more tears as the bad one rebelled against him. His left hand brushed against his chest, sending a shiver across his skin as he felt the puckering of the scars beneath his shirt.

_Pain. The glinting metal of the ceiling above him. Iron. Wet trails of mucus covering his leg as tentacles wrapped around it. His heart pounding in his chest. Something _touching_ that pounding heart. One blink. Two. Pain. Pain. Pain—_

_Warmth._

_No,_ Keith thought as the memories were forced away, _not helpless_.

The warmth pulsed.

A small smile played across his lips as he sat up and set to detangling himself from the blankets. The process took longer than he would have liked; he still couldn’t move his leg all that well, and he had to stop multiple times because the ache in the limb was unrelenting. The pain wasn’t as intense as that of the initial injury, but it was still enough to make him grit his teeth and breathe heavily through his nose. During the medical examinations, Coran had expressed optimism that the agony would fade with time and therapy, but Keith found himself skeptical. If the cryopods—an advanced, almost magical, form of technology—couldn’t fix the source of pain, then he was doubtful that his body could do better.

_But for now,_ he thought as he parted with the last section of blanket, _I’ll have to make do._

The warmth pulsed again. Agreement.

Carefully, Keith extracted himself from his bed. He shifted to the edge until both both feet brushed against the floor, and then he reached for where he had propped his crutches against the headboard. Once he found them, he made quick work of maneuvering himself to standing.

_It isn’t that bad_ , he tried to convince himself as he hobbled out of his room, crutches clacking hollowly in the empty hallway. _Not that different from breaking a leg._

Click. Clack. Click. Clack.

But broken legs healed.

Despite himself, Keith felt the heavy weight of frustration resurface in his stomach. The warmth tried to push it away, but Keith was stubborn even when he didn’t want to be.

Click. Clack.

The frail suggestion of a smile dipped into a frown, pulling his lips tight. His hands curled around his crutches until the knuckles bleached white. The warmth pushed back, insistent.

Click. Clack.

Keith ignored it. Instead, he focused on the pain. The slight wobble that accompanied some of his steps. The echo of his movement through the Castle’s quiet halls.

Click. Clack.

He left the hall containing the Paladin quarters and turned right, allowing himself to wander. He passed the lounge, the kitchen, an unknown room with a closed door. After another right and a few lefts, he passed the training room (refused to look at it, refused to think, refused to remember) and then ran into a set of stairs. Shit. He considered the staircase for a long moment; when forced to use crutches as a kid, he had encountered many a staircase, but he had never been particularly good at traversing them. He didn’t doubt that he could do it if he had to, but it was dark, late, and his leg ached even without putting pressure on it. As far as he tended to push himself, he knew his own limits. He didn’t want to risk falling (didn’t want to risk burdening the other paladins again, making them worry more).

He turned around.

Passed the training room again (refused to look, refused to think, refused to remember). Turned right at the second intersection. Passed the observation deck but didn’t go in; he had had enough of contemplating how small he truly was in the scope of the universe. He turned left. Went straight for a while before turning right again to avoid the medical bay.

Click. Clack.

When he hit the elevator, he took it down. Down. Down. Got off on a floor he had never been on and hobbled past abandoned storeroom after abandoned storeroom. Coughed at the dust blooming off the ground with every step. Tried to ignore the dark thing in his stomach when he stumbled across an old ballroom, pristine dance floor gleaming despite disuse.

Click. Clack.

Left again. Right again. Gritted his teeth, pushed past the discomfort. Right again. His heart pounded in his chest, and not because of the exertion. Right again. He hit the elevator and took it down again. Tried to ignore how far from tired he felt. _Insomnia,_ his mind supplied. He shook the thought off. Continued to move.

Click. Clack.

Left. Right. Right. Right. Left. Left. Right. Down. Left. Right.

He passed storerooms, bedrooms, meeting rooms. Passed two rooms filled to the brim with books and three that reminded him a bit of Earthen game rooms. He stumbled across an abandoned armory (tried to ignore it), a control room, and an a room full of pipes and machines that had Hunk’s toolbox tucked away in the corner. He ran into two of the mice trying to drag something fuzzy out of a closet (a task which they quickly abandoned in favor of scurrying up his pant leg and settling themselves on his shoulders. Their weight wasn’t unwelcome).

Click. Clack.

Left again. The darkness in his stomach persisted with every step, though the pulse of warmth shoved firmly against it. Keith tried to ignore both of them. The mice chirped from their perches, whiskers tickling his neck. His legs ached. His chest ached. His arms ached (and that meant that he was using the crutches wrong didn’t it? He didn’t care. Kept moving). On and on and on.

Click. Clack.

Until he found himself in a room that he couldn’t move past.

The mice perked their heads up as he stopped, and he felt one of them stand on its hind legs to try and get a better look at the space before them.

In his chest, the pulsing of the warmth grew. Grew and grew. He felt it spread to his shoulders, to his stomach. Felt it pulse so hard that it muted the pounding of his heart. So hard that it quelled the dark thing lurking in his belly.

Keith’s face broke into a tired smile.

“Hi, Red.”

Warmth spread down his arms as he took another step towards the giant lion. She didn’t move as he approached, but he noticed that her shield wasn’t up and that her eyes almost seemed to follow him. His crutches clacked against the ground, but the sound was no longer hollow, no longer empty. A soft crackling sound, like the jumping flames of a fireplace, filled the hanger with a gentle background of ambience.

“Thank you,” he said as he paused in front of her front right paw. “For…” _Letting me fly you. Saving us. Saving me. Staying. Understanding._ “...everything.”

The warmth spread to his fingertips.

An acknowledgement.

Keith nodded to her. “Thank you,” he said again. “You’ve been a good girl.”

Thank you.

This time, it meant goodbye.

The warmth pulsed once, twice, before spreading down his legs.

Thank you.

Keith nodded again, but despite what he had said, he couldn’t bring himself to leave. He stepped forward and leaned his forehead against her leg, savoring the cool bite of the metal against his sweat-soaked brow. Lance flew her now, so the contact didn’t bring her to life, but it still brought him a comforting sense of presence.

Warmth spread down to his toes, and he followed it, sinking down until he rested with his back against her paw. His crutches clattered to the ground beside him, startling the mice. Their squeaks of surprise made Keith laugh, and he apologized profusely as both dug their claws into his shoulders.

“Sorry,” he said as he lifted them both carefully from his shoulder and placed them instead on his stomach. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

One of the mice, the large yellow one, squeaked again at him. He hoped that it meant that his apology had been accepted.

Doing his best not to jostle his companions, he stretched his bad leg out in front of him. The pain from the action elicited a small groan and the spark of tears.

“Fuck,” he cursed, and then stopped himself. He vaguely reminded Allura reprimanding the mice on profanity after they had (allegedly) said something quite unkind, and he didn’t want to be a bad influence.

“Ow,” he said instead. A glance at the mice showed that they both either hadn’t heard him or didn’t care. They were both too busy trying to make themselves comfortable on his stomach.

Keith smiled as he watched them. The claws pricked through his shirt in a pattern not unlike that of a kneading cat, but the sensation tickled more that it hurt. The large one chirped twice at him before settling on the fleshy part of his stomach above his belly button. The other one refused to sit, and instead pressed a small paw to the place on his shirt directly over one of the vivisection scars and squeaked quietly at him.

Even though the touch was gentle, Keith flinched. The memories threatened to resurface, but he shoved them away. Red’s warmth pulsed in his chest, focusing its strength at the scarred tissue.

The mouse withdrew its paw, but continued to sit in its spot. It squeaked at him again, whiskers quivering.

“It’s nothing,” he tried to tell it. The same excuse he told himself when he avoided sharing the truth with the Paladins. “Just an old scar.”

The mouse squeaked again. Its paw hovered over the scar, and it glanced at him. It didn’t touch, only met his eye and squeaked again.

If Keith had to guess at the translation, he would say that it meant something close to “bullshit.”

He considered the small creature for a long moment.

Red’s warmth pulsed through the puckered skin.

“Okay,” he said after a long pause. “That’s not...that’s not what it is. But you can’t tell Allura, okay? Not...not yet.”

The mouse squeaked again, and Keith though he saw it nod its head. He couldn’t help but offer it a small nod back.

“They cut me open,” he confessed to it softly. “After they hurt my leg. Before Lance came.”

The mouse returned its paw to hover over the scar, and Keith nodded again.

“Yeah,” he said. “Right down the middle. They paralyzed me so I couldn’t move. Hooked me up to something so I couldn’t bleed out. Maybe quintessence? Something else to keep me from passing out. It hurt so much that I could barely breathe, but they didn’t care. They just kept cutting. Kept poking. Digging. Questioning…”

_Is this you heart?_

_The way you breath?_

_Are these connected?_

_Does this hurt?_

_Does this connect to the outside of the body?_

_Is everything always so red?_

Warmth pulsed through him as Red urged the memories away, focusing his attention back on the mouse.

_Thank you,_ he thought.

“They kept bringing me back. Again and again. I don’t know how it didn’t kill me. Must have been that stuff they pumped into me. Didn’t leave anything permanent besides the scars.” _The nightmares._

The mouse squeaked again.

“The worst part is that none of them know.” He leaned his head back against Red’s leg. “They don’t even have an idea. When Shiro carried me out of the infirmary, he didn’t realize at all. Nothing.” He glanced down at the mouse, which had tilted its head as a signal of attentive listening.

“And I can’t tell them,” he said. “I can’t because they’re already worried—about both of us. They’re already scared. Shiro’s already lost enough sleep. I can’t make things worse. If I tell them, Lance will blame himself for not getting there quicker. Pidge’ll get anxious, clingy. It would just make Hunk upset, and he’s already pushing himself to the edge with worry. Allura has enough on her plate already with two paladins down and a ruined alliance. I don’t want Coran to know that he missed something so major, and I know that he’d push even if he didn’t mean to. And Shiro…”

_Shiro._

He had seen the dark circles beneath his brother’s eyes. Had seen his disheveled hair, the yawns he kept trying to hide during meals. He had seen the older paladin’s fear, had heard it in the quiet “I can’t” when he refused to tell Keith what had happened. Shiro was already haunted by his own traumas. By Haggar, and his arm, and memories of the Arena. He was already haunted by Lance’s eye, Keith’s leg. It wasn’t fair to burden him with more.

Just because he was the leader of Voltron, it didn’t mean everything that happened to them was his responsibility.

“Shiro would fall apart,” Keith finished, “and he...he doesn’t deserve that.”

_He’s been through enough._

The mouse stared at him.

“Please don’t tell them,” Keith whispered, and he hated how his voice shook.

The mouse was still for a long moment, and then it squeaked, nodded. It stood, taking a few steps until it was directly over the scar. When Keith didn’t flinch at its touch, it squeaked again and settled down atop of it.

As the small ball of warmth curled up on the scar, Keith smiled. He reached a hand over and stroked the mouse’s head with one of his fingers. It squeaked at him and curled tighter. A moment later, the second one rose and joined the first. Its form was heavier, but the pressure was not unwelcome, and Keith petted it as well when it settled down in the middle of his chest on top of the scar.

“Thank you,” he whispered to them as their heartbeats fluttered against his own.

He hadn’t realized how much he needed to tell someone. How badly he needed someone to know, to _understand_ without being overbearing.

He loved his friends, and he _would_ tell them at some point, but he wasn’t ready for their worry, their coddling, their frustration (he had far enough of the latter on his own).

He just needed someone to listen. Someone who wouldn’t bother him with questions.

“Thank you,” he whispered again as they both fell asleep. “And thank you too, Red.”

The warmth pulsed through his entire body. If he focused on it, he could almost ignore the pain.

Keith allowed his eyes to close as the crackling in the room grew louder. _A purr_ , he realized as his consciousness began to drift.

One of the mice squeaked in its sleep, pressing its nose into his chest.

Keith yawned, allowed his mind to wander. Warmth bathed him, pushing the dark memories away, allowing him to float as he finally tried to reach for sleep.

Red’s purring blanketed him, filling the emptiness in the room, the emptiness in him.

In the final moments before he fell asleep, he felt the soft pressure of something on his chest. Felt two more small weights join the others settled atop his scars. He felt their paws, their heartbeats, and then he was gone—whisked away by red and gold and a steady warmth wrapped all around him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for reading! If you enjoyed the chapter, please do drop a kudos and a comment below, it really means a lot!♥ Also, if you'd like, go ahead and follow my tumblr @lilacpessimism for future fanfic updates or to chat with me!
> 
> Hopefully, the next chapter won't take quite so long ;)
> 
> Up next: Lance tries to move forward...

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked it! If you did, feel free to drop a quick kudos or a comment!


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